{"id":1929,"date":"2017-03-30T19:44:06","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T02:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/?p=1929"},"modified":"2017-04-10T16:14:10","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T23:14:10","slug":"dont-conquer-your-fears-confront-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/?p=1929","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Conquer Your Fears: Confront Them"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This article was originally published on March 7, 2017 on LinkedIn and can be viewed online here:\u00a0https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/dont-conquer-your-fears-confront-them-jennifer-massaro<\/a><\/p>\n

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Don’t Conquer Your Fears: Confront Them<\/h1>\n
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\"Jennifer<\/a><\/figure>\n
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Jennifer Massaro<\/a><\/h2>\n

High Tech Communications Professional<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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Follow Jennifer Massaro on Twitter at @JMoocow and on Instagram at EaseTheMain<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2014 and 2015 I sailed 16,000 nautical miles halfway around the world with my husband and 10 year old son.\u00a0We anchored off of beautiful beaches, sipped cocktails in the cockpit while watching sunset and traveled the world.\u00a0Jealous? Don\u2019t be.\u00a0That\u2019s the Facebook version. That\u2019s the romance novel version.\u00a0The real story is that I was scared most of the time.\u00a0And the rest of the time I was worried about being scared.\u00a0I was not cut out for sailing around the world.\u00a0But I did it.\u00a0And what I learned is that you learn a lot more from the things you think you can\u2019t do than the things you feel confident about.<\/p>\n

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Transiting the Panama Canal<\/em><\/h3>\n

I didn\u2019t grow up sailing.\u00a0It was not a passion of mine.\u00a0Growing up, I dreamed of adventure \u2013 but all of it was on dry land.\u00a0When I met my husband he told me he wanted to sail around the world. It\u2019s not that I didn\u2019t believe him, it\u2019s just that people say they are going to do a lot of things.\u00a0When we were in Portofino, Italy for our honeymoon my husband looked at me romantically and said, \u201cSomeday we\u2019re going to sail here on our own boat.\u201d I thought, \u201cWhatever, buddy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Arriving in the Azores<\/em><\/p>\n

You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you see a siren and lights behind you on the freeway and it looks like it\u2019s coming for you?\u00a0That\u2019s fear.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s your flight or fight response.\u00a0It\u2019s your limbic system overtaking your ability to reason. And that is what I would feel just thinking about sailing around the world.<\/p>\n

I was scared of storms, scared of big swells, scared of rough weather, scared of rogue waves, scared of making a stupid mistake that would turn into a life-threatening problem. You name it.\u00a0I was scared of it.<\/p>\n

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Leaving Cabo San Lucas, Mexico<\/em><\/p>\n

And nearly all of the things I was scared of happening, happened.\u00a0We lost our autopilot in 40 knot winds off the coast off of California\u2019s Point Concepcion.\u00a0We spent 3 days in 35 knot winds off of Mexico. We got caught in a thunderstorm off of Cape Fear.\u00a0We ran aground on the island of Vulcano off the coast of Italy. We spent the night in a severe gale off the coast of Portugal. We got pushed toward the coast overnight in 20+ foot swells and 30 knot winds off the coast of the Dominican Republic.\u00a0We lost our engine as we approached shore in Portugal.\u00a0We lost it again in 25 knots of wind at a crowded anchorage in Greece.\u00a0We lost the ability to raise our main sail crossing the most treacherous gulf in France in the middle of the night.\u00a0And once we got caught in hurricane force winds in Spain.\u00a0And that\u2019s just the top 10 scariest moment\u2019s list.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t even include all of the times I was scared anticipating <\/em>something: things like, well, crossing the Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0And unlike people who confront their fears and overcome them (if there are such people), I faced my fears and was still scared.\u00a0Towards the very end of the trip we were in difficult conditions crossing the Straits of Messina off of Sicily and I remember thinking, \u201cshouldn\u2019t I not be bothered by this anymore? What is wrong with me?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Saluting Lady Liberty in New York Harbor<\/em><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you how many times I longed to be sitting at a desk, in beautiful stillness, not worried about my own physical safety or the safety of my family.\u00a0But I learned a thing or two along the way.<\/p>\n

I learned that that life is always throwing things at you that trigger your flight or fight responses, whether you\u2019re at sea or at work.\u00a0I\u2019ve come to think of it as an opportunity.\u00a0It\u2019s an opportunity to expand your circle of comfort, if even just a little bit.\u00a0The things I could do at the end of our voyage were miles apart from the things I could do at the beginning.<\/p>\n

I learned that I will probably never stop feeling scared of some things, but that I don\u2019t have to feel bad about it. My amazing captain of a husband, Darold<\/a>, would tell me that men were scared out there on the ocean too.\u00a0But the difference is that they didn\u2019t beat themselves up about it.<\/p>\n

I learned that what matters most to me is how I deal with a situation and whether I can look back on it with pride.\u00a0The most rewarding situations of my sailing trip were also the most difficult.<\/p>\n

And perhaps the most important thing I learned is that confronting your fear is what makes you brave.\u00a0Not conquering it.<\/p>\n

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Approaching the Straits of Gibraltar<\/em><\/p>\n

I am not going to tell you not to be afraid.\u00a0I\u2019m not even going to tell you that you will stop feeling afraid after you\u2019ve faced your fears.\u00a0But what I am telling you is that if you face your fears, you\u2019ll be really proud of yourself.\u00a0You\u2019ll have a sense of accomplishment that you can never get from doing something that doesn\u2019t challenge you.\u00a0You may even gain enough confidence to face another fear or two.<\/p>\n

What is your <\/em><\/strong>Atlantic Ocean?<\/p>\n

Jennifer Massaro<\/em><\/strong> can be found working as a public relations professional at Cisco when she’s not out sailing. She holds an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University and an undergraduate degree in Urban Planning from the University of California, San Diego. Jennifer presents to groups of sailors and non-sailors alike about life lessons learned from sailing around the world. Follow her on Twitter @JMoocow<\/a>, Instagram at EaseTheMain<\/a> or check out the website her family kept while sailing around the world at www.EaseTheMain.com.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This article was originally published on March 7, 2017 on LinkedIn and can be viewed online here:\u00a0https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/dont-conquer-your-fears-confront-them-jennifer-massaro Don’t Conquer Your Fears: Confront Them Jennifer Massaro High Tech Communications Professional Follow Jennifer Massaro on Twitter at @JMoocow and on Instagram at EaseTheMain In 2014 and 2015 I sailed 16,000 nautical miles halfway around the world with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1931,"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions\/1931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}