Facing Anxiety and Fear: Surviving the Boat Trip

My husband and son are forever wanting new toys. Well, let me get this straight. It’s my husband who always wants and my son who then follows along. 😉 Typical father/son right? At least it is in our family. A boat was the latest desire and I truly wanted nothing to do with it. They are expensive and I hear a lot to maintain. I wanted an inground pool for heaven’s sake!

My husband is great at reminding me of the fun I like to have and what brings me joy. Tubing is a blast (hello every sore muscle in my body!) and I’ve always wanted to try skiing. Plus I love to go fast in the fresh open air.

I tend to let money get in the way (that’s a whole other story in itself too!) and then the fun goes to the wayside. However, with lots of time and searching invested (heck! Cree (my son) can navigate Craigslist and Google searches better than I can) they found our new boat, a great deal at that! I must admit, it’s pretty, it’s fast, but my God does it trigger my anxiety!

Labor Day weekend we invited the in-laws and took our boat out for the first time. I’ll admit, I started to feel the anxiety set in as soon as we headed out the driveway.

Thoughts started running through my mind….

Does Shane (hubs) have all that we need on the boat should we get stopped by the boat cop? You know like the fire extinguisher, distress flag, whistle, title/registration, line & anchor, enough life jackets for all, etc? What if we should get a flat on the way to the lake? Do we have a spare for the trailer? Are the straps pulled tight so the boat is sure not to move?

See, this is how my brain works when doing something we’ve not done before. I REALLY like to know that we’ve planned for every worse case scenario possible AND that we know what to do should a situation arise. Even though in retrospect I know that’s not really possible.

After many deep breaths and asking my bajillion questions to Shane along the way, I’m able to calm myself some. Not completely, but enough to not feel like I’m going to have a panic attack.

One thing I’ve realized in the midst of my freaking out is that I need to share how I’m feeling with someone. This then allows me to tell myself that if something should happen to me, someone knows how I was feeling. Funny how it works to make me safe, but it does. They know that I wasn’t feeling right and so if something should happen they know why.

I also then keep repeating to myself to just be. Be present in the moment and quit worrying about all of the “what ifs”. It’s proven when I enter the “what if” mode,  it sends me into a downward frenzy. Sigh…..

Back to the boat.

Because this boat is bigger and faster than we’ve ever had before, thoughts started creeping back in once we got on the water.

Does Shane really know what he’s doing? He’s never driven a boat like this before. Why does it feel like the nose of the boat is up so high? Is the nose of the boat supposed to be this close to the water?

Are we going to start taking on water? As Cree then looks over the side to make sure this contraption is doing its thing of spitting water out (totally normal, but when you’re having the thought “are we taking on water” and then he yells out “a lot is coming out”) it made my chest tighten.

I try to relax, sit down, and act like everything’s “okay”. We proceed out to the open water and I continue to feel the feels. I’m nervous, almost nauseous. I’m smiling on the outside and scared shitless on the inside.

I try to feel my feet on the ground, take deep breaths and be present. It’s not happening. I’m not feeling any better. A full blown panic attack is on its way. So I had to do the one thing that I know works best for me.

I turned to my father-in-law who was sitting next to me and proceeded to tell him how I was feeling. He listened. It helped. He shared with me how my mother-in-law feels anxious at times and he just doesn’t get it. He never feels that way so it’s hard to relate.

I told him how lucky he was. I expressed to him that just by knowing he was listening and not judging me, made me feel heard and safe. We conversed for a while and it worked. I thanked him.

It’s interesting, how I could have easily talked and supported (and would have loved to!) someone else who was feeling the same way as I was. We would have evaluated the worst case scenarios happening and worked through them. I would have known what to say and the questions to ask to bring them back to present and center.

One question I would have asked is “what does a worse case scenario look like with one of your fears?” The boat might come off the trailer? The boat cop might give you a ticket? The boat might sink? Any and all of those things could possibly happen. And in the end, it might cost you some money, but you will very likely be okay!

There are officers/paramedics to help with an accident or flat tire, there are stores where you can buy the required items to be put on the boat and if you don’t know how to swim hopefully you’re wearing a life jacket while on the water. These thoughts bring a sense of security and safety.

The reality is, I wasn’t able to listen and trust myself enough to believe what I already know to be true. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I was making myself go crazy, therefore, causing me to feel incredibly anxious.

By the end of our boating excursion (first of many to come!) I had tubed with Cree, laughed, authentically enjoyed myself, and remembered that Shane would never put us in an intentional situation where we were unsafe.

Writing this out is a great reminder of two of the biggest life lessons I’ve learned over the past year.

1) Ask for help, when the need is there.

2) Trust my discernment.

These lessons have helped me learn and grow both physically and mentally in SO many ways. The best part of it, horses were the ones that reflected this back to me. I’ll explain in greater detail in a later post of the exact instance when the horse taught both of these lessons to me at once. It’s a story in itself and one that I’ll never forget. Definitely magical!

Horses have also helped my friends, family and clients to realize similar life-changing lessons and amazing aha moments. In what could have taken weeks of therapy or counseling, 90 minutes in the round pen helped them get there so much faster.

So yes, I love horses and after seeing how they’ve impacted people’s lives in so many incredible ways, I definitely trust what they bring to helping people to get unstuck and realize their full potential.

Have you’ve experienced something similar?

I’m curious. How did you pulled through it? Let me know in the comments.

With much love and gratitude,