fear

Pasta Display Mykerinos

Trying to Do Too Much

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Anyone else have days where the number of things you want to do is much bigger than the time allotted? Every day ends up having too many tasks, many of which are of little actual importance. This leads to feeling overwhelmed and needing a vacation. I so have these.

As with a lot of things, I relate this problem to travel and fear in order to sort it out. Travel is something I think I do quite well and do enjoy, and rarely have these problems. And fear is a common source to problems that I am getting better at dealing with.

Greek Island from Airplane

Flying to Meet Phobos

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So as many know, I spent the past two weeks in Greece on vacation. As also mentioned many times, this trip was a big milestone as it was my first airplane flight in nearly 10 years.

I faced some big fears and some small fears and learned a fair amount on this trip. Certainly the biggest fear was the fear of actually getting there. I made it though with help from a lot of different people and sources.

Hallway

Freak yourself out

The posting schedule will be a bit erratic over the next few weeks. I am headed to Greece. I will as mentioned, get on a plane for the first time in 10 years to do this trip. I am still fairly calm considering this is one of my deeper fears. In preparation, I am going to intentionally freak myself out about flying.

No no, I’ve not more crazy nor am I trying to convince myself not to go. It is another technique I learned while going through panic attacks. Most fear is in the mind, so that is battleground. If you are frightened of something, running that situation through your head in a controlled freakout can help.

Graffiti Guy

Hungry Angry Lonely Tired

Stress is a part of travel. It is a part of the growing process, but sometimes it overwhelms us. I spent nearly a year at a time twice in my life dealing with panic attacks. Each time traveling to Europe seemed to bring me out of them. They are totally not fun and disruptive, but […]

Maze Gardens from Loire Valley, France

Indecision

No clue where I picked it up, but I tend to have this voice deep in my head about the big decisions “don’t make the wrong choice, you will not get another chance.” This is fine when dealing with actual life or death decisions, but for the rest of life’s decisions it makes things more difficult. In choosing to travel and especially in choosing to move abroad, I learned more and more that most decisions are not final. Sure I was moving abroad and selling off a lot of stuff at home, but I could (and technically still can) always go back if it didn’t work out.

Now I’m not saying that decisions don’t matter and should be taken lightly. Certainly look at the choice and make a good choice when one path is obviously better than another. I’m talking about the decisions that are so weighty as to drive me into cycles of indecision. If neither path seems to be fully better than the other, then maybe there isn’t a wrong choice.

Danger Falling Rocks

Breaking down Fear

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I bought my plane ticket for Greece. I was shaking at the travel agent looking at flight times, but I did it. The connection is way more ambitious that I had expected. It will involve two flights with an 8 hour delay in Athens. Does anyone know how nice it is to be overnight in […]

Airplane over ocean.

Facing Phobos in Greece

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I have decided to face one of my biggest fears: flight. I have not been on a plane in nearly 10 years. Despite the fear and the lengths to which I have gone to avoid flying (see post on cruising the Atlantic), I have decided to fly down to Greece for my vacation. I will take the train back, but psyching myself up for the flight down.

Phobos is the Greek god of fear. Phobia comes from the same Greek root-word. So it seems somehow appropriate that I go to Greece as an act of facing my fear. What is also nicely congruent is that the flights will be about the same length as those that I bailed on 8 years ago due to fear. That trip as well was to go on a cruise. That time in the Caribbean, this time to the Aegean. I am being given a second chance to make the choice to stare down fear and do it anyway.

Tunnel of Trees

Dealing with Fear through Travel

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Grand admission. I have fears. Lots of them in fact. Enough to have dealt with panic attacks twice for months at a time in my life.  The one thing I am not afraid of is Travel.  Really. I had less issues moving half-way around the world to a country where I had no job or […]