How to overcome fear? | Ina Dimitrova | TEDxVitosha
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc-zM-6YFDA Video ID: uc-zM-6YFDA ============================================================ Translator: Ger Kuzmova Reviewer: Pavlina Koleva Close your eyes and return to your childhood where darkness still hid some mysticism. Fear took hold of us then, but as we grew older we grew more corageous. And now imagine you are descending to the depths of the ocean. You are pressed by a heavy body of water. Sounds terrifying to some of you, I’m sure. But it was at this terrifying darkness that my personal story began to unfold. This is what an ordinary day of mine looked like for years. On this picture, you can see how I prepare my equipment and analyze the gases we use to descend to these depths. And this is probably one of my most important training days in the Red Sea. That's me underwater. It may not seem like it, but it's me. This is a training course for a technical diving instructor. For those who do not know, technical diving is a dive that goes beyond the limits of 40 meters deep. And so on July 14, 2015, I dived to a depth of 201 meters in the waters of the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt. This achievement not only made me the second woman to cross the 200-meter mark in the world, but also the first ... ... to reach such depth in open waters. At first glance this achievement was not spectacular enough in the eyes of the general public. I understand how the inaccessibility of the place and the lack of knowledge in the field, make it so that many people can’t imagine what it means to be squeezed by hundreds of thousands of tons of water at the bottom of the ocean. However, behind this simple circumstance lies an extraordinary journey filled with many challenges, doubts and, above all, a relentless quest to overcome human limitations. And now I invite you again to dive with me, to descend to the depths of the ocean, to imagine that you are far from the shore with five diving bottles hanging on you like these here. Yes, they were all on me. Equipment weighing almost as much as your personal weight. Descending downward, the pressure squeezes all your cavities. The immersion speed reaches 50 meters, and only if you extend your arm incorrectly, it can roll you over like an inexperienced paratrooper. Each subsequent inhalation requires tremendous effort from the apparatus. And there, you reach a place where darkness envelops you. The weight of the water presses on your whole being, and just to stretch your arm to the side takes an immense amount of strength and energy. And in exactly four minutes you reach the quietest and loneliest stage in the world. Your diving lamp is the only light that flickers. And you are the only spectator of the performance. From now on, each wrong action will cost you your life. Seconds from death. And your way up to the surface - at least four hours and forty minutes without a more direct and easy way out. Any wrong action like taking the wrong bottle of the wrong breathing mixture is my potential killer. Any panic can turn the script of the performance at 180 degrees. Any small mistake with the equipment causes a feeling that you want to wake up from this nightmare, but in fact you can not. Well, that was my reality when I decided to dedicate myself to my mission to conquer the depths of the sea. Now I'm sure you want to ask me why are you even doing this to yourself? Or at least did you saw something interesting, there at the bottom? But I’ll have to disappoint you. I did not meet Leonardo DiCaprio on the Titanic, nor did I see life-threatening sharks, but I had one very, very important meeting - the meeting with myself. This changed my life. It gave me courage and really turned everything upside down and I finally believed in myself. This journey into the world of silence was fraught with many challenges, both physically and mentally. It required years of rigorous training, the accumulation of special knowledge, skills, investment in expensive training camps and a lot of difficult travels. We had to assemble a team of outstanding professionals from all over the world, without whom this dive would certainly not have happened. It took specialized equipment for technical diving and to draw up a plan with very precise breathing mixtures that contain nitrogen, helium, oxygen. Incorrect breathing mixture at this depth can kill a person. It cost us a lot of funds, a lot of hesitant sponsors, skeptical observers, difficult trips and some internal battles. Yet through unwavering perseverance, faith, and support from my mentor Rosen, as well as personal self-discipline and deprivation, I decided to face everyone’s fears and achieved what many believed to be impossible. And so, my journey to the depths of the ocean taught me that fear is not a barrier. It is simply a door to a great transformation and it is entirely within our capabilities to change our relationship with it and harness its energy to push us forward. So here I am, today, before you not only as a technical diver, and of course also as an instructor, but also as an ordinary person with a very personal confession. For years I was worried, no I was straight terrified actually of close contact with baby diapers and mothers armed to the teeth with crying babies. And yet, on the threshold of my ninth month of pregnancy, I decided to finally fight the battle with the diaper. Why am I telling you this? Because my trip didn’t end with my 200-meter dive. It opened a door to a new beginning for me and set my new mission to help people overcome their fears. I believe this is a very important act for both the individual and the community as a whole. Fear is an universal emotion, that doesn’t distinguish gender, age and social status. We are the ones who often project our fears onto, as I call them, pseudo-enemies, invisible enemies. The easiest thing is to materialize them by giving them names such as the sea, the ocean depths, sharks and any other unknown creatures. However, these seemingly simple phobias prevent us from unlocking our potential and living a full and authentic life. For this reason, I have dedicated part of my life to people, to accompany them in the process of overcoming fears. And today I have prepared some tips for you to give you guidelines from my experience and what you could do if you are experiencing different fears. And so, the first thing is to meet your fear. What does that mean - to meet fear? First, to admit that you have it, and then accept it. And now I would be very glad if all those who are afraid of the depths of the ocean raise their hands. The moment you are left without a bottom. I hope you're honest and now only women put their hands down. Okay. I see some fearless gentlemen who are actually willing to admit that they are afraid. This is what it means to face fear and to admit it, because to deny it is to reinforce it. Then - get to know the emotions arising when you are afraid. The things that take away your strength. For example, if you come to a diving course with me, the first thing I will make you do is jump into the sea, into the open sea, where there is no bottom. Most of you will be horrified by this. The next day, I'll have you take off your mask underwater. This new horror will make you forget the previous one and you’ll become calmer since you already know what to expect and what are the emotions inside you. And now a cliché - to embrace the unknown, or rather to get out of your comfort zone. What does it mean to embrace the unknown? To make it known. That is, what we fear is often what we do not know. Often I hear from people attending the diving course: Oh, but it wasn't really that scary. Yes, because it used to be unknown before. The next step is to set small goals on the way to the big goal. You can guess for yourself that my dive to 200 meters was not a single act of courage. It was preceded by many other dives of 50, 100, 150 dives. It gave me confidence that I can handle my main goal of 200 meters. Direct exposure is to face the fear directly, meaning if you are afraid of bears, go into the woods. If you are afraid of sharks - dive into the depths of the sea. Productive processing is very important by the way, because people always ask me “Okay, what are you doing for four hours on the way up?” I only concentrate on the mistakes we made in the descent process that threatened my life and I don’t concentrate on the negative effect it had over me, but rather what I can improve on my next dive. That way I have the confidence to move forward. Finally, of course, believe in yourself. If I had trusted all the talk behind my back, I would have never been on this stage, before you. So, I invite you to embrace your fears, dive into the depths of your consciousness and emerge as fearless individuals who live their lives freely and happily. Thank you for your attention.