a journal on fear.
fear. a feeling most of us avoid. the thought of embracing it sounds insane. why would we want to sit in an uncomfortable feeling? it’s easier to run from the things that scare us than it is to be okay with them. is fear always a bad thing? I choose to believe it isn’t. that a healthy amount of fear provides the urgency to achieve the things on our mind. a healthy amount of fear welcomes growth, forces movement. rebukes stagnation. a healthy amount of fear can be lifechanging, when we allow it to knock on our comfort and push us into the person who conquers it.

there isn’t a life you could live where you avoid ever feeling fear. there is a life where you can spend a great amount of time running from it, though. I highly recommend you don’t run from fear. if nothing else, fear will teach you about yourself. remind you of your strength, remind you of how much you can handle before you break. remind you that your mind is tough, and the more you look fear in the eyes, the tougher you become. those who are resilient are resilient because they have faced their fear time and time again. even when they didn’t want to. especially when they didn’t want to. the resilient mind looks at fear as something to overcome. as our growth is typically on the other side of fear.

I can remember a lot of fearful moments in my life. of those fearful times, I grew from the majority of them. besides the time it was unnecessary fear like getting scared of a ghost or a noise I heard or something that holds no real value. however, looking at things that have intimidated me, things that have felt bigger than me- I have made myself equal to. I have leveled out the playing field that I had thought could not be leveled. and that’s the power of believing in yourself enough to overcome the difficult things.

two years ago, I lived in a constant state of fear. in an unhealthy way- a way in which I felt like the whole world was after me. that the world was a dangerous place, and I was fragile. that one small blow and I’d collapse under the sake of the world. I used my fragility as a scapegoat of growth. the person I could eventually become I was already intimidated by, as I knew the power I could possess, and that was scary. it seems counterintuitive to be intimidated by your own potential, but I feel like most people actually are. that’s why people don’t embrace change often. they like to stay the way they are. it requires less effort. and looking at the power they could one day hold is almost too much to handle. you deserve to reach your highest self, yet you have to get out of your own head.

too many people live under the imposter syndrome- always feeling like they aren’t doing enough. that they aren’t ever going to be as good as other people doing the same thing of them. that they aren’t actually on the way to achieving their goals. living under a box, feeling sheltered, shy. you can’t be shy when it comes to fear, overcoming it. you have to be relentless, pull out your strength, battle fear with the parts of yourself you’re willing to let go of. change, the embracing of fear, requires sacrifice. that’s what people are scared of. what they may have to let go of in order to reach the other side of their fear. there’s things and people, there’s a version of you, that you have to rid yourself of, and that’s hard to be okay with.

I remember the day I decided to embrace my fear, apply for my dream job. but it wasn’t the application that scared me. or even the interview necessarily. it was the way my life would look after taking the leap of faith on myself. knowing that nothing in my life would look the same after embracing this fear of mine. I knew everything would change: my environment, the people in my life, my lifestyle, all of my habits and routines. everything I knew was about to explode, disintegrate. and that’s what I feared most. but, one day, I realized I could sit in this hesitation for the rest of my life if I wasn’t careful. I realized that one day my fear could turn into regret. and for a lot of people, that is the pipeline. they fear something to the extent of running from it for so long that it transitions into regret. the “I should have” “I wish I would have” “what if” mentality that feels far more painful than the discomfort of fear. in life I think we ought to choose our discomfort. for me, I would rather feel fear long enough to grow from it. rather than the anxiety of running from it until I stumble into regret. as regret is a thing you cannot undo. but growth is something you can always capitalize off of. you can always switch directions, keep growing from your fear. but you can’t go back in time and do something because you chose not to do it out of fear. you have to sit with the decision you make in the way you go about fear. it will follow you.

I chased my fear long enough to be met with a version of myself I never would have dreamed of- one who is resilient mentally and physically. a version of myself that lives life fully, and loves each day. there was a big life on the other side of everything I feared. I’m happy with how I choose to regard fear.

fear will change you for better or for worse. and that’s entirely up to you. two years ago, it was changing me for the worst. it forced me to stay inside, sheltered me in, closed me off to the world. if you live in fear deep enough, you close yourself off to the opportunities of the universe. you close yourself off to a life that has so much to offer. fear can be paralyzing. debilitating. agonizing. you can live in a way where you succumb to it. where all of your actions align with the avoidance of the very thing you feel smaller than. and life will prove you are smaller than this thing. only because you are placing it above you.

but, if you so choose to allow your growth from fear, it can change you for the better. it can make your world seem bigger. open doors you used to hide behind. you’ll feel stronger, nothing is unachievable anymore. you’re capable of so much. once you prove that to yourself, you’ll nearly be unstoppable. life will feel like a challenge. in the best way.