In this second video of her "Anxiety Alchemy" series, Caroline Cavanagh documents the concrete steps she takes toward confronting her fear of jumping out of an airplane for a charity parachute jump scheduled on August 8. After a period of procrastination, she finally books the jump by paying a deposit, recognizing that the act of booking makes the fear real and forces her to confront it. She discovers that the surface fear of the jump masks a deeper fear of failure rooted in childhood expectations. Using a belief‑identification exercise from the Anxiety Alchemy website, she writes down initial beliefs (e.g., "jumping is dangerous," "I hate freefall"), interrogates them, and receives external input from an experienced jumper that challenges the "freefall" belief. This cognitive reframing lowers her self‑reported anxiety from a 9/10 to about 7.5, though she remains cautious. Caroline encourages viewers to use the same belief‑writing exercise, explains the importance of digging to the root of anxiety, and previews the next stage of her process—visualization. She also points to resources on the Anxiety Alchemy site for printable forms and further guidance.
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Hi, my name's Caroline, and this is video 2 in my series where I am pushing myself through my own process of Anxiety Alchemy, showing whether the process actually works, because time to put your money where your mouth is, isn't it? I've written a book, and it's all about focusing on your anxiety and a process that will take you through to confidence. My anxiety that I'm trying to deal with is jumping out of an aeroplane. And I'm doing that because I'm raising money for a charity. Now, at the end of the first video, I made a commitment to go and actually book the jump because I put the goal up ages and ages ago and since then did absolutely diddly squat about moving forward. That was 10 days ago, and okay, confession of a therapist time, I did nothing for another 3 days after that. It wasn't until Sunday night I was meeting a friend of mine who I knew would be asking me the next morning, have I booked anything? And it was actually that fear of saying, uh, no, I didn't, and getting it in both barrels that made me turn on the laptop at, uh, it was about half past 11 at night, and book the jump. So the jump is booked. Ah, so that means I've kind of got to do it. Um, hello again, confession number 2. I only put the deposit down rather than pay for the whole thing because that gave me a little bit— Okay, well, that would be wasting £50. As opposed to £300 and something, whatever the full jump is costing. So a little bit of a scapegoat there, but however, it is booked and I have taken a step forward. And that's a lot of what dealing with your own fears is about— it's taking action. Sometimes you can make really big leaps, sometimes you just need to take a dolly step, but even a tiny step means that you have gone forward. So I'm allowing myself a little bit of a well done me pat on the back. for having taken that step. So the next thing is about preparing myself for that, and this is really where the alchemy process comes in. Because what happened as soon as I pressed that button and went buy and typed in my credit card details and confirmation came through is that made it real. I now have a new wave that has come across. It's not about, ooh, am I gonna, am I gonna book it? It's like, oh God, I've booked it, I've now got to do it. Because what I realized as part of this process is, yes, I have a fear about jumping out of an airplane with just a piece of silk above my head, which is probably reasonable, but the bigger fear by not doing it was a fear of failure. I hate the idea of failing, and that comes back from a real childhood thing where my parents, bless them, wanted the best for me and always expected really, really high things. And failing really wasn't much of an option. So that became my motivator, was to jump, because yes, I'm raising money for charity, that's fantastic, really looking forward to doing that and helping other people, but the biggest motivator for me was if I don't do it now, having made that commitment, I'd be failing. So my message from that and my learning to really pass on to you is look behind what's your fear. Was my fear jumping out of a plane? Yeah, yeah. But the bigger fear, when I really dealt with it, was the fear of failure. So I'm using that energy. I now know I hate failing. So to not do this jump, to not raise the money, to have failed my own process, is actually not worth it. And it's much— it would be a much bigger problem to have failed than to have— than the fear of jumping out of the plane. So that's An important thing to start looking at when you're dealing with your own anxiety is what's really underlying that, because quite often your fear is something superficial, and to really get down to that root beneath it. And I use this analogy quite a lot when, when you're dealing with people. Quite often what they think they're coming to me for is— it's like the, the weed above the surface. And yes, you can rip that weed up, but unless you go right down and pull the roots up, another plant grows up. Had I just thought, well, I'm only going to work on Jumping out of a plane, I probably wouldn't have been that successful because actually the roots were the fear of failure. And now I have dealt with that, then I think I have a much greater chance of getting to a point of confidence and actually achieving my end goals. So that's where we are now. I've booked the thing, I've booked the jump, and I'm going to be doing it on August 8th, which is really quite soon, isn't it? Oh gosh, I didn't realize that. Okay, so that's quite soon. So the other next step of the alchemy process, which is a document that's on the Anxiety Alchemy website that you can look at— oh, you've got a tail in the background, excellent, that's my little dog rolling around— is all about beliefs. So I sat down and I, I went, took myself through that exercise, and it's really much about understanding what are your beliefs. And initially, those things start coming out. I believe it's dangerous to jump out an airplane. Yeah. There's a fair one on that. There is a risk of hurting yourself. Yep, it's a possibility. But you keep writing them down, you keep writing them down. A few others came out, and then I wrote this one down: I hate the fear of— oh, sorry, I hate the feeling of freefall. And as soon as I wrote that down, it was one of those, ooh, where did that come from? moments. What are my experiences of freefall so far? Is that actually true? Well, yes, I do hate the feeling of freefall. And when I thought about it, that's really the part of the parachute jump that I'm dreading. Don't mind going up in airplanes, quite like airplanes actually. Quite like the idea of floating down in the sky when it's all— and I'm gonna have a person behind me who knows what they're doing, so I place my trust in them. It's this minute of freefall that I'm absolutely dreading. So I thought, okay, let's investigate that. What, what is This belief, is that true? What's it based on? Well, the feeling of freefall, what's my experience? It's a few fairground rides, I've done a couple of bungee jumps. That's 2 or 3 seconds in a fairground, you're strapped to chairs and stuff like that. But the belief is true, I genuinely hate the feeling of freefall. And it was that I know from 1,500 feet, 15,000 feet— oh God, that's a Freudian slip as well, isn't it? 15,000 feet. It is about a minute. So I've hated doing 2 or 3 seconds, so multiply that by 30. Ah, that's going to be really bad. So I then got a text from a lovely guy who said, brilliant, Caroline, I've done loads of parachute jumps, you're gonna love it. And you know the freefall bit? It is nothing like Fairground rides or bungee jumps? Ooh! Hmm. So that questioned my belief because I am basing my fear on something I've experienced and I'm translating it across to something I have never experienced. I'm joining 2 and 2 together and up, and in this instance probably come up with about 10 rather than 4. So by actually now I've had that opportunity by talking to other people and getting their input to think, well, actually my belief might not be true. I might hate freefall when it's, um, when you're attached to some fairground attraction, but when it's completely open space and, um, you know, you've got none of that tangible things, could it be very different? And the answer that came to me was yes, it could be. I don't know if it's going to be or not, but just that thought of going from I hate freefall to I might be okay with it is enough to then shift. It changes the risk. That your body is using, that your mind is using to set up the anxiety feelings. So I now am feeling less anxious. I'm still, you know, pretty much on a scale, I'd say a while ago my anxiety was probably 9 out of 10 about this parachute jump. I think it'd be fair to say I'm probably about 7.5 now. I'm still scared because I don't know that I'm going to be okay with the free fall, but I've allowed that opportunity to believe it might be okay. So if you're following me through this Anxiety Alchemy process, perhaps you might have the book, perhaps you've been on the website and had a look at some of the documents. This is a really good exercise because it just allows you to start seeing some things in a different way and start shifting some of those things that perhaps aren't as grounded as you thought they were. So whatever you're facing, whatever you're wanting to change in terms of anxiety and becoming more confident about, Start writing down your beliefs and keep going because the first 2 or 3 that come out aren't the real biggie ones. Those are not the ones that are controlling the roots. So just keep going and when you've got all those down, then start questioning them. When my belief of I hate freefall was questioned, I realised that actually that belief wasn't so sound after all and the roots have loosened. So if you want to know more about that, there is a section in Anxiety Alchemy under resources where all of these documents and exercises are pinned. So go and have a look. You can print off a form, have a go at it. And the next stage, and this is going to be the third part of the diary, hopefully fairly soon, is when we look at visualization. Visualization, if I can even say it, there, put my teeth back in, is a really, really powerful technique. And I've started using that already to start thinking, okay, imagining myself jumping out of the plane and actually enjoying it, because that's starting to set up programs that will run at a subconscious level. But more about that next time. So have a go at beliefs, see what you see, shake what you can shake, and you'll just find that you're seeing things in a different direction. And we'll just finish on a very relaxed, very confident— here, where is she? Can you see her there? Yeah, there we go. Have a great day, everyone, and I look forward to seeing you again very soon. Bye. Bye-bye.
