When I sat down to, as today’s Blogtember prompts, write a story about a time I was afraid, I could think of none in recent history.

Going back further, however, I remembered there was a time when I was always afraid.

I was afraid of losing the people I loved, of getting hurt, or embarrassing myself. 
I was afraid of being laughed at, being alone, disappointing other people. 
I was afraid of making mistakes, afraid of failure, and – ironically – I was deathly afraid of missing out.


I must admit, therapy (and finding the right therapist) helped a lot.  But if I had to pinpoint the moment I stopped being afraid, it was probably moments after the moment when I was most afraid.  This is hard to admit and not fun to relive, but last 4th of July, when my long-term relationship came to a sad and hurtful end, I called my mother and unloaded all of my fears onto her.  I was facing a few:  failure, being alone, and obviously, losing the people I loved.

She told me, over the phone, that she was proud of me.  Proud of me!  For all the little things I took for granted:  moving to my dream city, working at jobs that I loved, being independent.  I never, never thought of it like that.  I wasn’t a failure, I just wasn’t focusing on my successes.  Suddenly, failure was relative.  Poof!  Failure was no longer a thing to be afraid of. 

My friends were there the whole time to lend an ear and have been just a text or phone call away.  I found that my “support network” was invisible but ever-present.  You are never really alone.  You just aren’t looking hard enough.  Poof!  Fear of loneliness eliminated.  I was still surrounded by the people I loved, as I had been all along!  Poof!

Removing the concept of fear from my life allowed me to pull myself out of what could have been a life-damaging situation and charge boldly ahead into a whole new phase.  A little over a year ago I stopped fearing things that ought not to be feared, and couldn’t be happier today.

Can you believe this was a year ago?  How time flies when you’re living fearlessly!