by
Amanda Cotton
www.acottonphoto.com

Avid scuba diver and ocean enthusiast, Amanda is an award-winning photographer whose images embrace the beauty below the waves. She is a member of The Explorers Club and was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame in 2015.

Stop. Breathe. Think. Act.

Four simple words capable of having a profound impact on your undersea experience. Words drilled into us during dive training in order to teach us how to avoid allowing small problems from escalating into dangerous situations. If you dive long enough you’ll utilize this phrase countless times underwater, but these words can also have a deep impact on your life topside as well.

Fear has a tendency of coming to us in waves, pushing its way into your thoughts, flooding your body with adrenaline, and drowning out reason, if you let it. In a split second, as it enters the scene, fear quickly tries to take over and we are given a choice, fight against it or let it run wild.

In our every day lives fear, or more clearly, the awareness of its presence, is an important asset we all carry with us. It should work to motivate action, help gauge the immediate threat of your surroundings, and assist in finding your footing in this world. The feeling of fear, as well as experiencing failure, provides for us a great service and both are deserving of great admiration; without experiencing either life becomes complacent and mundane.

My relationship with fear has been tumultuous for as long as I can recall, a constant duel between embracing and despising it. For many years a desire to travel the world, living nomadically without roots or predetermined direction was all consuming to me, but the apprehension and anxiety of committing to a lifestyle change this significant was monumental. This fear only increased as I grew older, breaking out of societal norms of established safety and security felt overwhelming. It was a daunting change in lifestyle I yearned for, but had been convinced was beyond the scope of my abilities.

Fear of the unknown raged against my desire for a life outside of the obvious. Relentless questioning of a woman’s place in society became my daily calling to break away, and yet there continued an ever-present and growing unease with every step made towards freedom. It was a foreboding distress so powerful it could easily push a person back into the grips of an “acceptable life”.

What was needed… STOP and BREATHE in the face of fear…

When you stop and breathe time slows and you stand present in the moment. A moment which brings a person right up to the edge of panic and loss of control, allowing you to visualize what’s outside of your comfort zone while still safely wrapped inside of it. If you move past this inconspicuous restraint allowing fear to take over, you’ll lose control completely, but when you find yourself balancing beautifully along the edge between fear and comfort with purpose an entire world of possibilities opens up. It’s in this pause, a break in the momentum, which gives you a moment to breathe and think through the next steps no matter the situation. It was this moment of reflection when it became easier to see the path of least resistance was not the right one for my journey.

Time to THINK…

Standing at the edge, calm and deliberate, it becomes easier to ask, “Why not?” instead of “What if?”. Why not give yourself permission to make choices different from what others expect? Why not allow yourself the space to create what is perfectly suited for you? It becomes easier to question the voices taking up space in your head that aren’t yours, those voices defiantly fighting to hold you back. Why do we listen to them instead of our own? Maybe in part it’s because doing so takes standing knee-deep in fear, along that dubious edge between comfort and doubt, full of anxiety and suspicion, worried we may fail. It means expecting a struggle and preparing for a fight, not only within ourselves, but many times with the world around us. It means taking a first step toward action, simply believing it can be so, and understanding wholeheartedly that failure is a gift of wisdom given only to those that try.

Nothing left to do but ACT…

Pushed to the brink of suffocating complacency fear helped shed a light on a previously unseen path perfectly suited for the lifestyle I longed for. Instead of shying away from the potential of failure and relinquishing all power I gave myself permission to move directly towards fear in a clear and concise fashion. This proved invaluable in creating a remarkable, albeit often times nerve-racking, life. Action, it is quite often the hardest part in the process. It’s all a mental game up to this point. Taking action means making a leap of faith from a well thought out and educated position while accepting the consequences of said action. It brings with it the possibility of having to start the process over again from step one. All journeys worth taking will include a never ending cycle of advancement and push back, but it’s safe to say the experience of living on that astonishingly powerful edge is well worth it.

Photos courtesy of Ken Kiefer/Ron Watkins/Jennifer Idol