A reader’s experience

Do you make a regular effort to face your fears?

A reader of my blog, called Vincent recently got in touch to tell me how he was facing his fears. This is no half-hearted approach as he is attempting to do something he fears every day for 100 days.

He sent me a link to his challenge on day 8 – Sky diving! I thought it would be good to share with all of you and perhaps might inspire some of you to get out of your comfort zone and try something new.

Anxiety results from us overestimating the threat and underestimating our ability to cope. This is known as the “Anxiety equation” in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. When we overestimate the threat we avoid facing our fears and the threat remains unchallenged. Do some reality testing – what we anticipate in our minds is often far worse than the actual event.

Mandy X

This is what Vincent wrote:

“Hi Mandy. My name is Vincent. I have noticed you post a lot of content relating to the theme of overcoming anxiety and facing our fears, so I wanted to share with you a project my friend and I are currently embarking on. We are currently working on a project where we do something new/challenging/scary every day for 100 days. I figured your followers would really relate to our project, our most recent video “Day 8 of 100 | Go Skydiving” has a very similar theme to the content on your blog so we figured it’d work really well with your audience. Anyways, thank you in advance for checking out my video, I’m a big fan of your blog and would be honoured if you featured our video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXdwaWWGZ8g Yours Sincerely Vincent”.

Photo by kaktuslampan

Author: Mandy Kloppers

Mandy is a qualified therapist who treats depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, trauma, and many other types of mental health issues. She provides online therapy around the world for those needing support and also provides relationship counselling.