#fromwhereIsit with FEAR Part 1

I’ve traveled to New York City via Amtrak half a dozen times in the past year. My first experience left me thinking, “I love this so much more than flying.” As much as I enjoy the travel portion of my career, I look forward to flying about as much as I would a root canal sans anesthesia. My irrational fear of plummeting from 33K feet has lessened with each flight. I think, “I’m still here, right?” or “Well that wasn’t so bad.” Taking the train, though, that’s the ticket! Pun intended.

A recent Tuesday changed my previously peaceful thoughts on this mode of travel.

Amtrak Regional 188 derailed on May 12th around 9:30pm. The devastation was shocking. Only four days earlier, my train home from NYC slowed to a crawl. Without warning the interior lights and air conditioning ceased while we lurched around the same turn. I commented to a friend how much the car was “leaning” as we slowly progressed.

Fast forward to May 21, nine days after the accident. I’m sitting on the Amtrak Keystone Line returning from Philadelphia when the train suddenly jostled harshly from side to side. Immediately my toes curled and the hair at the nape of my neck stood on end. I looked up quickly and clutched my iPhone as to not drop it during the impending impact. Of course, there was no impact, but in the moment, you couldn’t have convinced me otherwise.

I sat there and chuckled at my silly behavior. But no less than ten minutes later it happened again, accompanied by the same automated response from my body. What I found curious is that I never once reacted this way in the past year of transit on the rails.

Why did I respond out of fear to a non-existent threat? For the same reason you look cautiously at a commercial airliner when it flies seemingly close to a city skyline, even though the airport is less than a mile away, and in your heart, you know it’s on a landing approach. I believe we fear a perceived threat because the worst has happened once before. You’ve seen it. Someone close to you has been directly impacted by it. Whatever “it” is- cancer, divorce, job loss, a natural disaster, burglary. It has happened before, and it may happen again- this time, to you. To me. That’s why my body cringed instinctively to the “bump in the tracks.”

How do we avoid overreacting when our life hits a bump in the tracks? That will be the focus of my next post. A friend and colleague of mine, Kim Miller, recently wrote, “FEAR- False Evidence Appearing Real.”  Let’s identify 3 FEARs that routinely plague our thoughts. Jot them down and have them ready for part two.

For now, I’ve got to catch a train.

Question: What scares you the most in life? How do you personally overcome your fears?

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