Leaps of Faith

When I departed the US, I made a personal goal for my trip. I wanted to push myself outside my comfort zones. I left that goal purposely vague to allow for exploration of many of my comfort zones and in particular to see which comfort zones could be pushed upon in this trip. I found that my fear of heights is a comfort zone that was well suited to be pushed in New Zealand, one of the most adventurous places in the world.

For the first few weeks I couldn’t muster the courage, but finally, about a month in, I forced myself to sign up for the Nevis Swing in Queenstown. Nevis Swing allows you to ride tandem with one other person and you don’t have to jump yourself like you would when bungee jumping. In my mind both of these increased my odds of following through with the swing. The hours leading up to the swing were incredibly stressful for me. All I could think about was my mind-numbing fear of heights and the fact that I was about to fall from an incredible height. I started to question why I was doing this.

What did I have to prove to anyone? Truth be told I really don’t need to prove anything to anyone,

but it is important that I prove to myself that I’m strong enough to do things that scare me. Life is awash with frightening activities that I most likely will be forced to encounter at some point. I personally believe in the power of preparedness for dealing with those future events. Most likely I will never be forced to jump off of a platform in the future, but if I can master my fear then I believe that I can do just about anything. This thought process ran through my head as I waited for my turn and it reminded me why I wanted to do this in the first place, why I made this goal.

As I got into my safety straps, I began to laugh nervously. For some reason, this is how my stress chose to express itself. Ironically despite my poor mental state at the time, all of my pictures of the Nevis Swing look like I was having a wonderful time. This made me realize that one of my strengths in my general life is hiding my emotions. For my future academic and work life, this is a useful skill to have in order to  deal with situations that I may encounter. The way I summarize the Nevis Swing when asked is as such: I’m incredibly glad I did it, but I would never do it again. I learned about myself, my limits, and my abilities by pushing myself that day, but now I wish to move past those memories of fear to focus on different height related obstacles. The Nevis Swing will forever have fearful ties associated with it for me personally; therefore, I believe that to promote maximum growth I must move on to new conquests.

My next conquest I found on my last day in Wellington. Down in the Wellington Harbor, a metal staircase is set up for people to jump off into the ocean water below. Although the distance is much shorter than the Nevis Swing, there are no ropes involved. I felt much more prepared to approach this after tackling the Nevis Swing. My attitude this time around towards the height was far less mind-numbing although still quite fearful. I felt fairly confident in my abilities to do the jump until I climbed up the stairs to the top. At the top, I could do was look down frozen in fear. By the time that I had climbed the stairs, a large crowd had gathered below meaning that I had to either face my fear to jump or face my fear to let people down. I really did think that I was going to let down a crowd of 40-50 people and not do the jump after deliberating for several minutes. However, Kyle, a student on this program, came to my rescue and had the entire group do a countdown for me. With their support, I was able to force myself to jump.

This experience was very different from the Nevis Swing for me since it ended up being a less solitary and introspective activity. Jumping from the platform made me realize how important support from others is when confronting fears. I like to only be able to rely on my own abilities and instincts, but no one is strong enough to deal with everything on their own. I’m very thankful that I have friends here and at home who can push me and help me deal with my own fears. Going back to the US in a couple of weeks, I feel that I have pushed the walls of my comfort zone back and allowed more experience in which I look forward to exploring on my own soil.

~S