I did it.

I walked off the plank and floated down, down, down until a sea of bright white light enveloped me.

As I shared in my last Post (Part 1), I had let my anxiety and fear of “falling” into the abyss keep me from completing my son’s Virtual Reality game. Mentally ‘knowing’ that it was just a game and that I wasn’t actually walking off a real plank to my death wasn’t enough for me to override and manage my anxiety.

I had quit as a result of the physical feeling of terror and of thinking “What if…?”

I know that many of you reading this have found yourself in a similar situation (maybe not walking off a plank 20 stories high!) but, rather, a situation in which you believed that to continue would be dangerous, almost as if you were stepping off into the unknown.

Your ‘plank’ might have been a presentation that you must give, or an audition or interview that matters to you or simply a step forward in your life that feels scary and which you talk yourself out of.

This week, however, I re-visited my fear and played the game again.

I put on the VR headset, felt myself moving higher and higher on the virtual elevator until the doors opened wide and I was staring at the wooden plank high above the ground.

And yes, the birds were still flying around me as before!

Only this time, instead of letting fear make my choice, I implemented the following 3 steps in order to face my fear and move myself forward:

Have you ever found yourself afraid to try something new, to step out in front of a crowd, or to risk going into the unknown? I am sure that you remember the anxiety that developed and the steps you took to avoid feeling scared?

Well, I recently was scared, and it didn’t make any rational sense whatsoever.

A few nights ago, my son and his wife stayed over in our home. It is always such a pleasure to have them visit. This time, in addition to coming over, he brought his new “toy”, an Oculus Virtual Reality Headset.

This VR Headset is advertised with these words, “Stop watching games and step into them. Whether you’re dodging obstacles or slashing through enemy hordes, you’ve never been this close to the action.”

Boy, were they right.

As someone who prides himself on being in control and providing Anxiety Coaching to others so that they can learn not to allow fear to make their choices, I decided that I would go for it. “Give me a scary one” I said – and my son obliged.

On went the headset.

Immediately, I was transported to a world where I could look all around me at amazing sights and sounds. This is fun I thought, all the while remembering I was in our living room and really not in a cartoon-like city of trees and birds chirping away.

It was fun until…

He told me to press a button on my hand grip. I did, because I remembered that no matter what I saw, I KNEW it was not real and, thus, could not shake or hurt me.

I switched the scene and found myself inside of a very real looking elevator. No problem, I’ve got this I thought.

And then, the elevator doors opened.