How to Take Control of Anxiety & Fear — A Personal Story
Declared clinically dead at two years of age.
I had an incredible fear of water. It stemmed from an incident when I was two years old.
My father was a bush pilot when I was born. One Saturday morning, my siblings and I were visiting his base. As happened during that era, adults talked inside and children played outdoors. If there was anything we did well as a family, it was to play. We were in the middle of a rousing game of Red Rover. It was my turn. I focused on my sisters’ arms, determined to break their hold. I ran as fast as my little legs could carry me, down a small incline. I gathered speed.
Then I did it.
I broke through my sisters’ grasp.
I continued to run. I could not stop. That little incline added momentum to my legs. It propelled me forward. Hard packed dirt gave way to a wooden dock. My hard-soled shoes echoed on the planks. I reached the edge. And then nothing but air separated me from the water. I fell in. I do not remember whether it was hot or cold. I do not remember the water closing around me. What I do remember was sinking — very slow — down to the bottom of that dark lake.
In his article on Clinical Death and Biological Death…
