Fear is a funny thing. It starts out small, often as a small, nagging discomfort. But over time, fear can take on a life of its own, and develop into a full blown, panic-inducing phobia.

Funny story.

I am deathly afraid of the ocean. An innocuous snorkeling trip as a teenager developed, over time, into an intense fear of what lay beneath the beautiful water. My husband has a similar feeling about heights. And for two people who absolutely love to travel, over time, we came to realize that these fears were extremely limiting. Think about all the adventurous activities that our fears were keeping us from doing.

So we made a deal. He would zip line in Cancun if I would scuba dive in Grand Cayman.

Last summer, he made good on his promise. (He nearly stroked out, but he did it!) And so the time had come for me to return the favor: Grand Cayman.

We had become overly busy in the time leading up to the trip and never became dive-certified, so instead, swimming with the stingrays became the activity of choice.

And I did it. The screaming child who grabbed onto me for comfort nearly did me in (didn’t he know that I wanted his dad to rescue ME by lifting me out of the water like an airplane???), but I did it.

Eleanor Roosevelt was a wise woman. She said, “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”

And that’s true. Getting in the water to swim with stingrays is not a heroic act. But the very fact that I made the decision to do it, despite the fear that had lived with me for decades, was an empowering one. I feel like a better and stronger version of myself for having done it. And I made my husband happy in the process. It was a win-win.

A small lesson in not allowing fear, big or small, to keep you from living your life. It’s a nice reminder, isn’t it?