Overcoming my fear of pets | Post

Happy new year - 2021.

Today is the first day of the first month.

Quite an interesting start to my new year.

I've been finalising some projects this week, so today I decided to go out and get some fresh air.

I took a walk to a rather uphill part of the city and then I made the decision to go have a moment of solitude to quiet down my mind.

On my journey up, I realised that it was busier than I thought it would be, but that didn't bother me too much because I spotted a vacant area.

During the uphill walk to the area, I spotted a cat, but proceeded along my way. A group of girls went over to play with it.

I went about my way and got onto a large rock and sat comfortably with my legs crossed.

Less than 5 minutes later, I felt something come to my left-hand side so I turned my head to have a look at it. "Maybe it's an insect or a person," I thought to myself.

I was shocked to realise that it was the cat.

[I should give a disclaimer: I am as African as it gets when it comes to pets.

I'm the 'I don't mind them being around me, but if I had a choice, I would not have them around me,' type of person.

This may not make sense to some people, and that is totally ok. A bunch of people, on the other hand, will relate very well to this feeling.

I say this because I recall having a conversation with a lady here in Europe some time ago. She told met that she had noticed a trend of great discomfort around animals with many of the Africans she had interacted with.

I still don't have any answers to this observation, but I have heard someone say that it has something to do with the history of people of colour. During the times of oppression, pets and policemen were often used to invoke feeling of fear in people. She explained that this is the reason why there is fear towards pets and policemen].

I diverge.

I very quickly started to feel fear rise up in me as I realised that there was a cat in my personal distance.

My first instinct was to "move away".

But if you know anything about me then you know I've been on a journey where I make the choice to lean into anything that makes me feel discomfort.

So I sat still and watched the cat.

As soon as I relaxed, it proceeded along with its journey.

Unfortunately, though, the direction it was taking was on me.

"This is escalating quickly," I thought to myself but I remained calm. "It's just trying to get to the other side of me," I reaffirmed myself.

I suddenly noticed it put its head and body inside my lap as if to cradle itself in legs.

It was a cute sight and I started to rub its back.

My use of human language to describe this event should be proof enough that I know absolutely nothing about pets. But I had seen many people do that, so I had no doubt that I was doing the correct thing.

I noticed the cat shift slightly in order to make itself comfortable on my lap. At this moment, I had another mini-panic moment as I thought "It must be busy pooing on me right now.

This darn wild imagination of mine.

I quickly calmed myself down as I reminded myself that it pooing on me would not be the end of the world, I would simply remove the poo and continue with life.

I also realised though, that I had done my end - doing what was uncomfortable - and that it was now time to say goodbye.

So I slightly pushed it off of me in hopes that it would get the hint and climb off me.

But of course, this cat was having none of that.

My priority at this point was to not anger it otherwise it would scratch me.

In hindsight, I now realise that that's been the only thing I've ever feared about cats.

This is because when I was a toddler, my brother's friend once came with scratches on his body, and the friend told me that his cat had scratched him. So, each time I've seen a cat from then, I've always thought "stay far otherwise it may scratch you".

Lemmie have a moment: in all honesty though, cats were never the root issue. Here was this cute cat that just wanted some love. It had done nothing wrong in itself - except invade my privacy. But what do cats know about privacy? Nothing! And I can never hold someone to something they do blindly.

Neither was it scratching me the issue. I've fallen and been scratched by objects several times and I healed from each moment.

The actual issue was the feeling of fear I held in me towards the cat.

Fear is like a useless bag filled with heavy rocks. We carry it around every day of our lives, in order to remind ourselves to keep the fear alive. I look back to the fears that I've conquered since I began this courage-journey and realise how many rock-filled bags I lived my whole life believing were real.

Fear only remains real as long as its sustained.

This is only the beginning of overcoming this pet-fear. But I'm grateful to have begun the journey towards defeating it.

** If you're wondering what happened between the cat and I.

Unfortunely, my device was at home so I could not Google search, "how to get an attached cat off me," so I searched my memory and remembered having seen people picking up cats with both their hands. I also remembered somone once say that it's not good to just throw a cat to the ground as the cat could get hurt.

So I had 2 priorities: DO NOT ANGER IT - else it will scratch you, and DO NOT HURT IT.

So, I lifted it up and you will not believe what happened next. I saw it's nails come out and it dug them into my pants to prevent my from getting it off me.

I nervous-laughed and kindly told it that it was time to go. I was really not trying to anger the cat. I realised that was the point at which things could really go bad for me.

But they didn't. The cat was polite, and the nails didn't hurt.

In fact, thinking about it now, I can recall worse activities taking place as I tried to remove my nephew from me as a toddler.

I am convinced that kids are more dangerous than cats now.

My lesson from this day was: don't go meditate outside, you are not a movie star.