Overcoming my fear of heights

---

**Warning pretty long blog post but I wanted to capture the story so I can re-read if I need to at a later date!**



Background

I had been on some pretty good holidays previously that were not the usual sit by the pool or beach all day kind. In fact each one seemed to be getting a bit more adventurous than the previous one. Don’t get me wrong I like having a holiday where you can do nothing but chill out in the sun and in fact the first time my friends suggested us going to New York for a holiday the price alone compared to my usual holiday in the sun was enough to put me off! But slowly the idea grew on me and after much discussion and planning the holiday turned into a 16 day trip to New York, Las Vegas & LA costing way more than I had ever paid for a holiday before. The timing was also interesting…..I had been disillusioned with the corporate world of work for a while but didn’t know how to get out or what to do until I went to a company paid training course (ironically!) which was the catalyst for everything that followed and practically gave me a full on slap in the face that I hated my job and didn’t want to do it anymore. So fast forward a few months and I planned to quit my job and work for myself in a completely new area full time with only a few months experience which was all self taught. Sounds crazy and it was, especially when it turned out I finished up my notice on the Friday and set out for the holiday of a lifetime on the following Tues. That holiday turned out to be a turning point for my future travel and was the best money I ever spent. There's a saying that travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer and it's true. Me and my two friends had a great time, from biking around Central Park, visiting all the sites in the city and walking for miles to ordering ridiculously sized pizzas each, coining the phrase “pizza full”. Vegas was just as amazing in its own weird way which also included a side trip to the Grand Canyon.



Grand Canyon

It was probably here where my fear of heights which I always knew I had, and had blamed my dad for, actually had the first real impact of stopping me from experiencing something. We had booked a day trip from Vegas to the Grand Canyon which involved a small 15 seater plane, a helicopter ride, a cruise on the Colorado River and the added option of going on the Sky Walk which was a glass horseshoe shaped cantilever bridge which stuck out from the side of the Grand Canyon over a 4000 feet drop to the actual canyon below. I flatly refused to do it, as the thought petrified me. Even looking at pictures gave me sweaty palms. Luckily my two friends were able to book onto it even if I didn’t want to. So I became the designated camera person to take photos from the side about 200 metres away whilst they put shoe protectors on their feet and walked round onto it. The only problem with this, was that the place I had to stand to try and get any good shots of them, was only about 10 feet from the cliff edge and at one point I had to take a step over a huge cracked section to get in the right position. Needless to say there aren’t many photos, especially as I spent pretty much the whole time worried to death for the safety of the other people around me who seemed quite happy to walk to the edge and some even sat with their feet dangling over the edge while posing for some great photos. The whole experience left me stressed out and I was glad when it was over… until we got in the helicopter to fly over the grand canyon, where the pilot who obviously loved his job thought it would be great to give the tourists a good time and fly over the edge of the canyon edge, and then actually point the helicopter downwards so we “fell” down into the drop. Everyone else in the helicopter was loving it and shouting again again, while I was clutching on for dear life right next to the door with my eyes half closed with fright but half open in case I missed something.



Route 66

After that holiday the next ones got more adventurous; driving the length of Route 66 from Chicago ending up in San Francisco, a 3.5 week trip around New Zealand and Australia and then finally in 2016 a road trip to Vancouver, through the Canadian Rocky Mountains and to Niagara Falls. Each one had more challenges for me and my fear of heights. The Route 66 trip we took a detour to the Hoover Dam which was unplanned and whilst it looked spectacular I only saw the view from the edge of the bridge which is alongside it after refusing to walk anywhere along it. The railed barrier was only about 4 feet high and the drop over the side was 900 feet to the dam below. Watching other people including my friends walking and running along it stressed me out so much I had to look the other way the whole time. The trip to New Zealand involved doing downhill luge karting at Rotorua where you had to get to the top sitting in a ski lift type thing which took you to the top, I managed this just about although had to talk myself through it in my head the whole time. We also visited the famous Sky Tower which I just about managed although a mixture of jet lag and stress caused me to have a few strong words with my friend who kept telling me to just go a bit further back towards the windows for a better photo!



Rocky Mountains

The Canadian Rocky Mountain trip involved zip lining which I booked for my friends birthday because she wanted to do it. Although I knew I would be petrified I kept pushing the thoughts to the back of my mind and convinced myself that because it was a birthday present I would just suck it up and get on with it, mind over matter. That is until the morning of the activity when I couldn’t push the scared feelings back anymore and they all came flooding to the forefront leading me to have a mini emotional breakdown, with tears, anger, anxiety and the thoughts of doom in my head of my impending death. I even started blaming my friend who’s birthday present it was for wanting to do it in the first place. After about half an hour and her saying it was OK we could cancel if I wanted, I managed to pull myself together enough to try and at least push the emotion back down inside and put on a front. So much so that when it came to the first zipwire (there were five) and they asked for a volunteer to go first I stepped forward like a coiled spring just wanting to get it over with. Once clipped in I stepped off the edge and thoroughly enjoyed the feeling, and half way across was beaming and so pleased with myself that I had managed to do it, I even ended up looking forward to the next four and was a bit disappointed once we were finished! I thought I was cured!



2017

Fast forward to the summer of 2017, when the idea was put forward by my travelling buddy to go to South America for our next holiday or should I say adventure. I wasn’t too convinced at first as it hadn’t really been on my list of places to visit which was most in part due to the fact I didn’t really know much about it. But I knew I needed a bit of a challenge. My business was doing well and had been going five years by this point. The years of hard work and hours put into my business had taken their toll and I had been enjoying the fruits of my labour and slacking off a little. I had fell into a bit of a rut in life, going to work, doing my thing then just being a bit lazy in general. Being a goal orientated type of person my goals for the past few years had all been about my business and I had achieved more than I had ever set out to do. So after more discussions about a trip to South America we decided to do it and booked flights which involved visiting Rio in Brazil, Lima & Cusco in Peru and then a flying visit to see friends in Buenos Aires in Argentina.



Then the researching began of what to do in each place, we had to visit Machu Picchu, that was agreed. I knew it was in a mountainous region and whilst this was a little scary I thought I’d be fine as I knew you could get the train and a bus there. Until we started looking at things further and Steph wanted to do the Inca Trail which was a multi day hike and camp with guides following the old Inca route to Machu Picchu. The thought of a multi day hike and trek did excite me, I would need to do some exercise and get back into better shape and be more healthy though to do it. Slowly I realised this was a possibility and it would give me a goal to get fit and get my arse into gear losing the excess weight I had put on in the previous years. It would get me out of the rut I was in and give me something fresh to concentrate on and look forward to. We looked into it further and my fear of heights slowly resurfaced in my head when looking at pictures of the trail online, it showed cliff edge drops and steps that looked like they led to nowhere. I followed up by reading a few blogs where the words “don’t do if have a fear of heights”, “many people were crying going down the steps next to a death defying drop” kept popping up. My fear won and although I wanted a challenge I felt this was a step too far and I told Steph I point blank wouldn’t be able to do it. This wasn’t like the zip lining where I could just drop out or where it was only an hour out of my life, if I got to a point half way through the multi day trek I couldn’t afford to have another breakdown and refuse to do it, it would ruin the whole trip to Machu Picchu and the holiday and I’d feel like a complete failure! Steph was disappointed to say the least, so I began researching other options of reaching Machu Picchu and came across the Salkantay Trek. It was twice as long as the Inca Trail and a lot higher in elevation and altitude but from all the pictures I saw online there were only a few sections and bridges that would test me and I thought I would be able to do them even if under duress but it was possible. So I spoke to Steph and she was excited as it meant a trek was possible and the scenery was supposed to be a lot more beautiful. We knew we’d need to exercise more and get in shape but had a few months to do it. So we booked it…..



Just to make things absolutely clear... I rejected the Inca Trail and have chosen to do another trek that is for five days (Inca Trail is generally 4), four nights, is twice as long, goes a lot higher and is actually documented as being a lot more physically demanding….purely due to my fear of heights - Madness! I hate letting things get the better of me yet when I read that out loud it’s crazy.



Fitness

So in a bid to start getting fit and losing weight I took up running and started the couch to 5k in May 2017. The focus was on getting fit, the bridges and fear of heights was pushed back again. I managed to complete the couch to 5k plan and started doing Park Run as part of my training before starting the couch to 10k plan in October. Then the run up to Christmas hit which is the busiest time of the year for my business. My training stopped although I did manage to keep up park run every Saturday. January came and I realised I needed to get out and start running in the week again. I had a couple of bad park runs where my times were awful (I’m a bit competitive if you can’t already tell!). I got really disheartened but knew it was because I had been slacking on training runs. I got into a bit of a downer and realised it was only 8 weeks until the trip started.



Fear

My fear of heights started to raise its head again and I was obsessively looking at images on Google of the trek route, and blogs, you tube videos and anything I could to try and find the worst bridges and the highest sections of the trek. I don’t know if I was trying to scare myself or to prepare myself. Either way it worked and I started to seriously stress that I would get to bridges and not be able to cross or that I would work myself up so much afraid of what was ahead I would hate the whole experience. Then there was the added pressure knowing that Steph would probably get it in the neck again when I couldn’t control my anxiety and would probably drive her mad with my stressing. Up until this point I had again pushed the fear to the back of my mind convincing myself it was mind over matter and I was strong minded and therefore would be fine. The obsessive researching made me realise I was in trouble sat in my own home getting sweaty palms looking at pictures of the bridges online. So I decided I couldn’t risk just rocking up and battling through this time, not for five whole days on what was supposed to be a beautiful spiritual type journey with amazing scenery.



Hypnotherapy

I began to look at hypnotherapy as I knew nothing about this apart from what you see on the TV. My original view of this was that I would visit someone for a few sessions who would put me in some sort of trance, tell me I’d be fine and would be able to do it and then I’d wake up none the wiser and be cured! I knew this was naive and probably not the case really but imagine if it was, easy peasy! So after some googling and researching online I found Christina at Snowdrop House in Shrewsbury. Details on her website were that hypnotherapy could deal with phobias including a fear of heights. I was a bit nervous and for a few days I kept going back and forth in my head thinking I would be fine and didn’t need it then one day I just decided to bite the bullet and sent an email. I didn’t know if it would work or if I even had enough time to tackle my fear. But I thought at least if it didn’t work then I had at least tried and given myself all the possible tools to be able to complete the trek and get across the bridges and walk along the edges. She gave me a call and we talked through my fear and what I wanted to achieve, one of the first things she said to me was “oh that sounds amazing” about the trek. I suspiciously thought she was already starting some sort of positive reinforcement trying to get me thinking about the amazingness of the trek! (Little did I know at this point she had done a 100km trek herself as well as the three peaks challenge!). Anyway she was friendly on the phone, put me at ease and said she could help, she said it would probably only take 2-3 sessions but it was completely up to me. I booked the first one for a few days time and turned up. I was a bit nervous as I’m not very confident with people I don’t know and can be a bit shy but she had seemed nice on the phone and I needed to try anything to get my fear of heights sorted.



I had three sessions over the course of 3 weeks which was my decision with no pressure to have any further sessions past number one. I really enjoyed the sessions and Christina was very easy to chat to. We talked about my fears and emotions and feelings about heights and bridges and I had some hypnotherapy which was recorded on my phone so I had the facility to listen back to whenever I want. I’ve been listening to the recordings on a regular basis which have made me feel calmer not only about heights and bridges but in general. I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone with a phobia or anxiety.



The Adventure Begins

Fast forward to the week before we left for the adventure (holiday just sounds too tame!). I had been training more in the previous 2-3 weeks after stepping things up. I was running more and doing hikes up our local hill, The Wrekin at least twice a week as well as doing some HIIT pretty much every day. I had been listening to the recordings regularly and watching more You Tube videos of the trek and bridges as I was struggling to find real life tests for me to experience. We had planned a trip up Snowdon but the weather put paid to that. We did manage to fit in a 20km hike on the Long Mynd. Steph had done it previously and neglected to tell me about a section where the path was pretty narrow and on an edge of a graduated drop. But when we came to that section I took it in my stride and didn’t feel nervous at all and dare I say it felt “normal”. Afterwards she commented that before I would have really struggled with that bit which is why she hadn’t mentioned it before. There was even a section where the path ahead was clearly on an edge and I couldn’t see where it led, before I would have let Steph go first telling me what was ahead and following her close behind, but I led the way wanting to see for myself where the path went. It seems the hypnotherapy had really started to work.



In the coming days before we left I was feeling great and really positive and was actively looking forward to the adventure and particularly the trek. I didn’t feel nervous at all, which was a strange feeling in itself, normally I was used to trying to focus on the 10% excitement factor and ignore the 90% fear for the activity that was planned.



Rio - First Test

Our first main destination was Rio, where we planned to go up to the Christ The Redeemer statue and also to the top of Sugar Loaf mountain on a cable car. Beforehand I’d focused more on the trek because it was for a longer period but actually the cable car up to sugar loaf mountain ended up being my biggest test. The same physical feelings came back from previous instances involving heights. My hands were shaking a bit, my legs felt like jelly and I felt jittery in general. However my mental state was different. I knew I could do it and just did it, there wasn’t any real hesitation, I didn’t even feel that scared! In fact it was even hard for me to even comprehend it being as much of an issue as it had been previously.



The Salkantay Trek

The trek actually ended up being a different experience to what I expected. I was fine with the bridges and edges. The physical challenge of the trek took over at times so I was more focused on that then being scared of the heights etc. In fact I weirdly looked forward to the next bridge as I saw it as another test for myself. I managed to lose the stopper from one of my walking poles in one of the wooden rickety ones as the pole actually got wedged between the planks and the stopper got stuck when I yanked it out but that just made me laugh as I knew I would have panicked before.



There was one instance where we had to cross a landslide which had only happened the day before. That was terrifying in itself, but for everyone in the group and not just me. I’m pretty sure I handled that a lot better than I would have done before. We heard afterwards from the guides that sometimes people get so petrified they have to be carried across in a firemans lift. I managed to crawl across myself so I’m going to call that a win!



After the trek finished and we flew to Lima we even attempted to go paragliding. The thought of it would not have even crossed my mind previously but I was willing to check it out. I was more confident about my ability to not freak out and to handle the situation. Unfortunately on the two occasions we attempted to do it it wasn’t possible as there wasn’t enough wind so I don't actually know whether I would have definitely gone through with it but there was a strong possibility!



I don't know if I’m ‘fixed’ as such, it's really hard to say as I don’t even recognise the same edges, heights and bridges as being scary anymore which still makes no sense to me!



What’s It Like?

People have asked me what it was like to have hypnotherapy and it’s hard to describe. The best way I can describe it, is that the feeling, after listening to one of the recordings or having hypnotherapy is like the feeling after going for a massage at a spa. It’s like a massage but for the mind that leaves you feeling relaxed and calm. My confidence in myself has increased and I’m now looking to continue with the fitness and look for the next challenge. I’m so glad I sent that email back in January and wished I’d done it sooner.







-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



If you are in the Shropshire area and are interested in some info on hypnotherapy, mindfulness and fitness see Christina’s details below.



Contact Christina: 07807 991251 or [e-mail]

Website: www.snowdrophouse.co.uk

Social Media:https://www.facebook.com/snowdrophouse/

https://www.instagram.com/snowdrophouse/

https://twitter.com/snowdrophousecm

---