"If it scares you, do it"

That was a short but powerful quote I read in a magazine today and it has me thinking even more about my "control freak" tendencies.

Ever since childhood I have been the girl to play it safe. I didn't ride my bike down that steep hill near my Grandmother's house. My fear of water kept me in the shallow end of the pool because I couldn't bear to learn to swim - it'd require me to give up control.  Only once in my life have I had a little too much to drink and that didn't leave me out of control, tipsy maybe, but the 9,000 pounds my head seemed to swell to the next morning was enough to keep me on the 2 drink MAXIMUM list.  The idea that I might not remember what I did or who I did it with because of too much alcohol or drug use keeps me quite sober. 

So it's safe to say that being a control freak has it's up side, but it keeps you out of the game of life in many instances that are actually perfectly safe. Learning to swim, for instance, is safe! No one is going to just let me drown, but leaving the control on the chair with my towel while I let someone teach me to survive in the water is just too difficult for me.

"If it scares you, do it!"

I've always been an anxious kinda person.  It got so bad this summer that I had to see my doctor about it because it was really affecting my daily life and quality thereof.  Worrying about getting hit while riding bikes with my kids - or alone for that matter - was the kind of thing that kept me from getting out there. Anxiety about getting in a car accident or being in traffic kept me in very close proximity to home because venturing out was just too much to bear, anxiety wise.  This was all very irrational fear that overcame me on a daily basis: my nerves were shot! So