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CONVERSATION LESSON

FEARS AND PHOBIAS

Dan: Hey Aaron. How are you doing?

Aaron: I’m fine. How are you doing, man?

Dan: I’m doing pretty good. A little bit uneasy.

Aaron: Really? What are you uneasy about?

Dan: A little bit afraid.

Aaron: Oh yeah? You’re feeling fear?

Dan: Well, we’re in the studio. It’s kind of a small space.

Aaron: I see. Yeah.

Dan: That’s a common fear, is claustrophobia or agoraphobia.

Aaron: What’s the difference?

Dan: Actually, I’ve heard agoraphobia used to describe people who have a fear of small spaces and open spaces. So I’m going to have to check that. It seems strange that you will use the same word for both.

Aaron: Do you have a fear of small spaces?

Dan: I do.

Aaron: You do?

Dan: I do. So we’re in the small studio. Feeling a little uneasy but I’m okay.

Aaron: You’re okay. All right, that’s good. I don’t really mind small spaces too much. It doesn’t bother me.

Dan: No?

Aaron: No.

Dan: So that’s as one of the stories in this month’s Core Audio, was the story of revolving doors and how that was built or that created a phobia in some people of small spaces.

Aaron: Yeah, that was really interesting how the revolving door itself was the solution to a problem and the problem was a fear. So it’s the solution to a fear but yet that solution actually caused fear in other people. And I actually understand that fear a bit. As a small child, I got a little nervous going through those doors because they seem kind of powerful and if you’re not paying close attention, you just feel like you can get swept up in it and it crush you, or something like that.

Dan: I remember when I was a kid, I feel like I heard stories about people’s feet getting eaten up by escalators. So I was kind of afraid getting off of an escalator.

Aaron: Oh really? An escalator?

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: My daughter is afraid of elevators. She was actually when she was younger. She just didn’t want to go in and she always wanted to take the stairs.

Dan: So was it glass elevators or any elevators?

Aaron: Any elevator. She just didn’t like the feeling of being in that small space and going up and down.

Dan: But revolving doors, a lot of people. I don’t think it’s at a phobia level but people just don’t like them.

Aaron: Well, hang on a second. When you say ‘at a phobia level’, what do you mean by that?

Dan: Well, like we talked about in the Core Audio, I think the difference between a phobia and a fear is something that’s disrupts your life or diminishes you in some way.

Aaron: Okay, yeah right. So like, for example some people have fear of dogs, especially big dogs and maybe a normal fear might be if you see a Rottweiler or a German Shepherd or some meanlooking Pit Bull, you feel kind of nervous and a little bit uneasy and I think that’s a very normal common fear. But if you avoid going to the park for years on and because you’re afraid you’re going to see a big dog there, that would qualify as a phobia because it’s disrupting your life.

Dan: Right. Look at fear of heights. I’ve got a fear of heights but it doesn’t stop me from going up high in buildings. I actually kind of enjoy it but I’m afraid of it at the same time.

Aaron: It makes me a little uneasy, too. But another example of a difference between a phobia and a fear is the fear of flying. There are a lot of people that are afraid of flying in airplanes and as irrational as that fear might be, still many people have it and as long as you can deal with it, it’s a normal fear. But if it’s something that… If you don’t attend your best friend’s wedding because you’re afraid to get in a plane, then that would qualify as a phobia because it’s extreme and it’s disrupting what normal people would do.

Dan: Stopping you for having normal relationships.

Aaron: Exactly. Speaking of this, do you have any full-on, full-fledged phobias that you can think of, that have disrupted your life?

Dan: No. I’ve got like regular fears. Well, maybe not so great. I’m afraid of the ocean.

Aaron: Just in general or like swimming in the ocean or getting in the boat, or what?

Dan: No, I got no problem being on a boat and I got no problem scuba-diving. I actually love scuba diving because I’ve got control of my air and I’ve got fins on or flippers. So it’s like you’re Aquaman, you have kind of like superpowers under the ocean. But if I’m just snorkeling, or if I’m just… I mean snorkeling is OK. At least I’ve got my air tube and I’ve got fins. But if I’m just swimming, I get really uncomfortable. I’m a poor swimmer and I just don’t like the idea of being part of something so huge that I can’t see what’s going on.

Aaron: Actually, that makes me very uneasy, too. I’m afraid some big fish is going to come and take a bite out of me.

Dan: But if you got your oxygen under control, at least you can see what’s coming in your way.

Aaron: Right. There’s a measure of control there.

Dan: But I’ve almost drowned a number of times because I’m such a poor swimmer. I almost drowned in a lake, in a river and in the ocean.

Aaron: All at the same time.

Dan: All at the same time.

Aaron: That would make me pretty afraid, too.

Dan: All in the same day! It’s a challenge.

Aaron: It was a horrifying day for you.

Dan: The worst was when I almost drowned in the Pacific, off of Costa Rica. This was maybe about 20 years ago and I was studying abroad. At that time, my good friends from New York came down to visit me and we decided to go to the beach. I went out in the ocean by myself while my friends stayed out on the sand and I got caught in a rip tide. So the undertow, the current was pulling me out.

Aaron: It was pulling you out. Not sideways, it was pulling you out to sea.

Dan: It was pulling me out and I realized that I was trying to fight it which, of course, you’re not supposed to do. You’re supposed to go parallel with the beach until the rip tide dies and then comes in. But I didn’t know that.

Aaron: Oh you didn’t know that at the time? Oh man, that must have been really frightening.

Dan: It was really scary and I’m a really weak swimmer.

Aaron: So what did you do? How did you deal with it?

Dan: I was panicking. My heart was starting to pound. I was trying to remain calm, trying to wonder what to do seeing that I wasn’t making headway against the current. Just as I’m starting to really panic, my friend on the beach spots me. And my friend was like on a swim team. He was like a really strong swimmer. And he yells. He yells, “Dan, are you okay?” And I remember thinking, “Oh, he found me. Shawn’s going to save me.” And yeah exactly, I yelled, “Noooo!” Aaron: He gave you the thumbs-up sign, “Okay!”

Dan: That’s exactly what happened. He yelled. He said, “Okay, I’ll see you back at the hotel!” So what happened he thought I yelled, “Yeah!” He thought I yelled, “Yeaaahh!” Anyhow, I’m still here to this day.

Aaron: What did you do? I mean, what happened?

Dan: Obviously, maybe I did get pulled a little bit parallel to the beach where it was a little weaker. I was able to swim in but it wasn’t intentionally. I didn’t understand.

Aaron: I see. So you’re actually able to get out of it. You just got lucky.

Dan: I got lucky. It was a really frightening experience for me. I remember I was so angry.

Aaron: So does this fear of water affect you today?

Dan: No, but it makes me still angry at my friend Shawn. Because when I got back to the hotelAaron: He gets no Christmas cards from you.

Dan: When I got back to the hotel, I was like, “I yelled, ‘Nooo!’ Why didn’t you help?!” Aaron: What did he say?

Dan: Of course, he’d say, “I thought you said, ‘Yeah.’” And then he goes… and then he says to me, “Man, I’m really glad you didn’t die. That would have really sucked for a trip. That would have been a real bummer for our trip.”

Aaron: Wow! So fear of water is something you’ve had.

Dan: Yeah. I got a little bit of fear of water but of course it doesn’t stop me from going. I like being on boats. I like scuba diving.

Aaron: So it’s a normal fear that might be a little more extreme than other people, perhaps. I got one of those, too.

Dan: What do you got?

Aaron: Fear of getting up in front of other people and performing. When I was young, it manifested in piano recitals. As I got older, it manifested itself in public speaking. Ironically, that’s what I often do as part of my livelihood, is speak in front of other people. I get up every day in front of classes of 20, 30, 40 people and I give talks throughout the year at various conferences and venues related to language learning. I often have to stand up in front of hundreds of people at the some of the school assemblies that I attend. I mean, it still makes me nervous to this day and it hasn’t been easy to deal with.

I remember as a child I had a piano recital and I got up in front of 40, 50 people and I had practiced really hard for my piece, my musical piece. I got up there, my mind just went blank. My stomach sank and I got the chills. And I couldn’t remember anything. I couldn’t do… I sat there in silence in front of dozens of people. Luckily, my mother knew me very well and she had brought along the sheet music from which I used to practice. She walked up in front of this audience and handed me the sheet music. At that moment, my memory suddenly came back seeing those notes again. But yeah, that’s been a problem all my life.

One of the very first talks I ever gave, my mouth got so dry, I was so nervous that I couldn’t… my tongue stuck to my… I couldn’t talk. I had to run to the bathroom and gulped down water from the sink just to wet my mouth and run back in the room to give the talk.

Dan: What’s interesting is probably at that time, you’ve probably been a teacher already for quite some time.

Aaron: Yeah, that’s true. Now it has.

Dan: What I think is interesting is how a different context can totally throw you off. I remember when I went to grad school, I’ve been a teacher for 5, 6, 7 years. And I remember the first talk I had to give to the other students some presentation. I remember my heart started pounding and I was like, “What’s going on? I talk in front of people all the time!” But just having this different contextAaron: It can sneak up on you.

Dan: Yeah. But clearly you’ve got a nerve of that. You do quite a bit of public speaking.

Aaron: I do. I mean, I haven’t gotten over it but I guess maybe a better way to describe it is I’ve learned to deal with it better. And I’ve gotten more skillful with dealing with it. One of the main things that I do now is I label the feeling differently. In the past, I’d feel those feelings, I’d feel my stomach getting butterflies and I would feel my mouth getting dry and my thoughts getting very scattered. And I would say, “Oh God, I’m nervous. I’m scared. What am I going to do?” Now, I re-label it as excitement. I’m getting geared up. I’m getting ready for this talk I’m going to give. Just that very simple of re-labeling it with a positive label rather than a negative label, has helped me deal with it.

So that’s one of the things. Of course, breath control is another one that I definitely practice in this situation. I make my breath long and smooth. I focus on it and that helps calm me down and focus.

So there are some tricks to it that I’ve learned along the way.

Dan: A lot of boxers and martial artists talk about that.

Aaron: Talk about what?

Dan: They talk about the fear that they have. Not necessarily the fear of physical harm. These guys fight for a living. They’re not afraid of getting punched or getting an arm broken. But they’re afraid of putting it on the line and losing. So they got a lot of nerves before fights. I’m sure not all guys, but a lot of guys. I’ve heard quite a few different ones talk about re-labeling. Fear is excitement.

Nervousness is excitement. To try and to use it to get ramped up.

Aaron: Actually, another thing that people do to combat fear, and I know this is actually one of the treatments of a severe phobia, is something called a fear ladder. Have you heard that term before?

Dan: No, what’s a fear ladder?

Aaron: A fear ladder is when you expose yourself to the object of the fear in stages, in graded stages. Let’s go back to that example of being afraid of dogs. If you’re terrified of dogs to the extent that you can’t even walk in the park or walk in your neighborhood or you alter your life because you’re afraid you’re going to run into a big dog, that’s something that needs to be dealt with. That’s not a normal fear.

One of the first ways that you can start confronting your fear is just by looking at photos of big dogs.

That would be the first step, is like getting comfortable looking at photos. Maybe you post some of those photos in places in your house where you see them frequently like the kitchen or the bathroom. You just get used to looking at pictures of big dogs. Then maybe the next step would be watching videos of dogs barking or interacting or playing. And you got to choose dogs, that is, videos of dogs that you’re afraid of like Rottweilers or big Mastiffs or something like that.

Then maybe the next step would be to approach a dog but from far away. Keep a distance from a dog. Then maybe the next step would be over time as you get more and more comfortable with it, actually get closer to a dog. Let’s say like 5 or 10 feet away from a dog. Then eventually, go up next to a dog and actually maybe touch it and pet it. Then eventually, spending time with dogs and playing with dogs. Over time if you take it in steps, it’s not as overwhelming and you can deal with those steps along the way. By the end of the period, here you are, interacting in an intimate way with the object of a severe fear that you used to have.

Dan: That was the technique in the Core Audio with the woman who had the zombies. I think one thing we didn’t mention was that the very first step was just going to a video store and just looking at covers of DVDs with the zombie on it. Then she slowly moved to renting it, but not watching it, just keeping it in her house, being able to sleep with the DVD in her house. Then watching it, then writing stories, short stories about zombies and it just became more and more part of her daily experience.

Aaron: I’ve heard from some of our Fast Fluency Formula members that one of their fears is actually speaking in a foreign language with other people. Of course, this means English for our members. I think one of the advantages of the method we offer is that it gives people an opportunity to practice speaking out loud on their own, without having to deal with other people. They can do it in the car. They can do it in the privacy of their own home. And that builds confidence so that when you do get together with a group of people or a conversation partner, you can take it in stages and you’ve practiced it so many times. Now, if you have a conversation on the exact same topic that you practiced many times, you’ve got that confidence that you’ve practiced at many times. You can do it.

You know you can do it. Now you’re in the situation where you do do it. And if you come away with that, come away from that situation, having had a successful conversation, it’s like, “Wow, I can totally do this!” That’s one of the good things I think about our method and our materials is it gives people a chance to walk down that fear ladder, or walk up that fear ladder in stages. So yeah, definitely, fear.

So do you expect to get over any of your fears of water anytime soon?

Dan: Hmmm… Well, yeah. It doesn’t really affect my life. I don’t live at the beach. But I would like to become a better swimmer. Just to feel less like I have the vulnerability.

Aaron: Well, it certainly is a great exercise. As you get older, it’s the kind of exercise you can be doing because it’s not hard on your joints. I’m a terrible swimmer, too. I’m actually a little bit afraid of the water, although maybe not as much as you. But that’s something I would like to get more experience at.

Dan: I’d like to get better but the problem is most swimming training is either for beginners. It’s like, I know how to swim. I’m just not very good at it. Or it’s for triathletes, like real athletes. I remember my friend who’s a poor swimmer. Maybe you’ve heard the story, she wanted to improve her swimming and she ended up, unbeknownst to her, in rolling in a swimming course taught by Olympians, like it’s all like triathletes.

Aaron: Oh no. That’s nowhere you want to be. So there you have it.

Dan: There you have it. One thing that I thought was interesting was the story of the Essex. One thing I didn’t mention in that piece was this was actually the inspiration for Herman Melville’s story of Moby-Dick.

Aaron: Oh really? So he knew about that story before he wrote Moby-Dick?

Dan: Right. The survivors, just to recap that story, these are whalers, US whalers. They had to come down from the East Coast down to the southern tip of South America— Aaron: Wow, that’s a long way man.

Dan: And then around to the West Coast and that took them five weeks.

Aaron: Only?

Dan: Yeah. I was actually surprised. I thought it would take longer.

Aaron: Yeah, especially back in those days. I mean, using the wind.

Dan: But maybe there’s good winds going down that way.

Aaron: How about that? Wow.

Dan: So five weeks to get over there to where they thought they were going to hit the whale central, and no whales. Then they hear from other sailors, “Well you got to go 3,000 kilometers west.” Aaron: Which is way on the Pacific somewhere.

Dan: Yeah. It’s pretty much the middle of nowhere. It’s as nowhere as you can get to the Pacific ocean. And they get out there, they spot whales and this mammoth whale just rams them. It was the first recorded story of a whale intentionally attacking a ship, just head on ramming it.

Aaron: Wow, that’s pretty scary.

Dan: Apparently, this whale was stunned. They had harpoons. They were aiming a harpoon to kill this whale but the whale, it was stunned so close to the rudder of the ship that they were afraid that harpooning it might make it thrash and destroy the ship. So they held back. And maybe it was a big mistake because the whale came to, and then started swimming away, turned around and then rammed them again.

Aaron: Sounds like a horror story.

Dan: The huge hole and the ship went down. It’s really interesting, the first recorded story of a whale doing that. There definitely was some intelligence. The whale knew these were enemies.

Aaron: This was an enemy. This was a danger.

Dan: Yeah. That the whale had to take out. They had three small vessels that they used for chasing whales that were apparently really dinky, really fragile. They got on those and they scavenged as much of the food and water they could from the wreckage and a lot of this food was full of saltwater, so it was unedible (inedible). Or it was edible but it would just make them more thirsty. They had really limited supplies of water. In the story, they pretty much had three choices. One choice, they could head for Hawaii.

Aaron: Which was really far away, right?

Dan: Which was really far. Actually, the first choice was they could head to Marquesa Islands. These islands, they had heard rumors, which apparently were not true, that there were cannibals there.

That was the closest place. Second closest was Hawaii, but they knew, they had some pretty solid evidence that there were bad storms that time of year so it would be quite dangerous in their dinky boats. The third option was to go all the way back to South America in a dinky, little, not like a giant sailing ship.

Aaron: They would starve to death or die of thirst or something.

Dan: Yeah. They figured that for the amount of survivors they had, they had enough for about 60 days and it would take them much longer.

Aaron: So it seems to be the logical choice would be to head for the islands where the cannibals are.

Dan: What’s interesting is this writer who gives this really interesting TED talk that we’ll provide the links to. She talks about how… She’s a writer and she talks about how this is a perfect example of how fear is a story. It’s a story that we tell. It’s a story with a plot.

Aaron: Sure. We create it.

Dan: It’s a story, we use our imagination. I really like the way she put it. It’s not just we’re the writers of our fears; we’re also the readers. Just like when we read anything, we don’t get on the internet and we just don’t accept everything we read. We critically judge. What’s the source of this? Is this rational? Is this logical? Is this something I should follow? We’ve talked about before, fears are not always bad. Fears can help us survive a lot of times. They were in a critical juncture, a critical decision between these three fears. Which is the most realistic? And they got caught up. They let their imaginations be carried away with them and they get caught up in the most sensationalist fear, which was cannibals. They took the most irrational choice of going the farthest distance when they knew that their food wasn’t going to last. This food was full of saltwater.

Aaron: It’s almost like accepting a death sentence, really.

Dan: This food, it was making them more thirsty, and they didn’t have enough water. They came to the point where they were drinking their own pee. Then it came to the point where they were killing each other. I think on one of the ships they actually drew lots, like who was going to die. They had a pistol.

Aaron: And be eaten?

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: Okay.

Dan: So it wasn’t like just all chaos. They decided we’re going to do this. We’re going to make a decision as fair as possible. So they drew straws and the one who pulled the shorter straw was the youngest, like some kid. Actually, the captain had some sort of relationship with him. He was sworn to protect him. He knew his family or something. So I think the captain actually said like, “I’ll take your place.” The kid, who wasn’t that young, maybe 16 or so, said, “No. I’m just happy with this straw as any.” Then they had to draw straws again for who–

Aaron: To find out who would do the deed.

Dan: Who would kill him, because they had a pistol. Who was going to shoot him? That was on one boat and there were three boats and there was, I think, cannibalism happening at least on two of the boats.

Aaron: Isn’t that ironic?

Dan: Yeah, that’s what they’re most feared of.

Aaron: That was their most fear……what they were most afraid of… And that’s what they had resorted to doing to each other. Isn’t that crazy?

Dan: They had food for 60 days. The few had survived. I think there was maybe 3 or 4 that survived out of this 20 something sailors. They were picked up 90 days later.

Aaron: I see. Wow, 90 days.

Dan: Yeah, 90 days and they had 60 days worth of food.

Aaron: Man, it must have been pretty emaciated.

Dan: Yeah. Back to this idea, they weren’t only the creators of these stories; they were also, had some responsibility to be the judges of these stories.

Aaron: That’s a big part of fear. I mean, there certainly is a biological basis for fear. That’s what’s kept us alive all these millennia. I think we make our fears a lot worse by what we feed into them with our own imagination or own thoughts. More often than not, they’re totally irrational. They’re totally hysterical. They’re crazy things that we imagine and they’re not true at all. That’s another approach to dealing with fear, is challenging those assumptions, challenging those beliefs that are associated with the fear. Is it logical? Is it rational? Is there evidence to support it? More often than not, there isn’t any evidence. It’s like the fear of flying. It’s like you’re way more likely to die on the way to the airport in a car than you are flying 30,000 feet in the air going 500 miles an hour.

Dan: Well, I’ll put the link in the PDF for everybody to watch. You should watch, too. It’s really interesting talk.

Aaron: Okay. All right, I will.