Fear: a happier life starts with a braver you.

One of the best writers and creative directors I ever worked with shared this quote with me:

“Everything we want is on the other side of fear.”

Now, he was speaking about new ideas and campaigns and the way he wanted to approach working as a department — but as soon as I heard it, I knew it to be a universal truth.

I stared at the red and black slide in our then-Ogilvy office and wondered if so much wisdom wasn’t… well… wasted in advertising.

Very soon after, as soon as I could muster enough courage, I left the advertising world and began the path of trying to become an accomplished writer.

The result of being brave?

The very next day, I met a film producer from L.A.

I kid you not.

***

The story about what happened after isn’t for this article though. It’s about making the decision to leave the advertising world — for that was the very first brave thing I did.

See, what I haven’t shared is that I loved every moment of it. In that space, my creative soul finally found itself; I belonged, for the very first time in my life and my career.

And I was being grown.

That same creative director would look over my shoulder, “What’s that punchy headline doing in the body copy?” and elegantly help me perfect my craft. I was given opportunities with senior staff, training, and awards (that he’d probably say I earned), and because he only needed a few hours of sleep a night, he’d often drop by my desk in the late evening whether it was a campaign or my own story that I was working on and spend a moment to connect with me (and whoever was still there).

When I stared at that creative director, I saw Greatness.

Great people were Brave, I thought. And so began my first lesson in fear.

After a month or so of 2 a.m. journalling, I came to a decision and nervously slid my resignation letter across his desk.

Puff, cloud, puff.

He smoked his pipe silently as he read.

An eternity passed.

“It’s not great for the company, but it’s great for you. Go be a real writer, girl.”

When I turned back at the door he gave an approving nod and my heart beat-beat-beat against my ribs with pride.

On my last day, even as I carried my overladen box of personal effects, I left the building lighter and in alignment with my soul. It was an exceptionally humid day in July and London was sweaty, but I didn’t feel it. I remember standing at the bus stop, daydreaming of my new writing life and all that I would get to share with the world.

As the bus came, I accidentally swung my box to get up and impaled the man next to me with my tennis racket. (I truly lived out of that office.)

He handed it back to me and smiled,

“Are you a writer? You look like a writer.”

I shook his hand confused,

“Yes.”

And you know the rest of that story.

***

Today, as I hold my new coaching certificate, I am reminded of the importance of being brave. Being brave is living in authenticity with our deepest desires, feelings, nuances, and guidance to move toward our truest, highest selves.

Great experiences, friendships, relationships, jobs, opportunities… you name it, all come from taking steps that are scary, uncertain, un-walked, and often, unrecognizable as brave by anyone but ourselves. And it is its own accomplishment.

It doesn’t matter if the end result is not what we wanted. The act of being brave frees us. We become more authentic, more ourselves.

I am always learning this lesson. I learned it when I had to leave full-time startup life, I learned it when I had to leave an unhealthy relationship, I learned it when I had to deal with a mysterious life-threatening illness.

We are always living with our fear in the same way that we live with our other emotions, and we must use it as a guide.

Most recently, it guided me to a somatic coaching course, another stepping stone in my healer’s journey, though at first, I bucked and resisted and stubbornly avoided this path. Among many reasons why I shouldn’t and couldn’t do such a course, was that my fear also told me that I had the Czech language skills of a first grader and that I couldn’t possibly do the course.

However, one day, letting my mind wander during my morning ritual, I remembered how Elizabeth Gilbert had painted her anxiety and depression as stooges, in Eat Pray Love. And I too, decided to make fear a character in my story that had a knowable face and name.

And so, inspired by my first-ever brave act, I renamed it “The Knowing”. I sat with The Knowing, I breathed in deep, and we talked. It told me, believe it or not, that it was lonely.

It was lonely, you see, because everyone ignores it.

Ah, but… well, yes.

Because once We Know we cannot Un-Know, and we are scared until we take the steps to face our fear and get to that other side.

And yet. The Knowing ferries us across the river Styx where stagnation lives.

We must look at the potential value of an opportunity, not just its costs, and allow ourselves to paint a vision of that beautiful Other Side. The Knowing simply directs us to where we need to go. Sure-sure, you’re thinking, but why doesn’t it go away once and for all? Why does fear have to be so … well… fear-full?

The answer is, that we need our fear. We need it to take action. We just need to remember that The Knowing often isn’t accurate; facing off with a tiger is life-threatening, but facing off with ourselves? Our own doubts and self-limiting stories? Most likely, we won’t die when confronting an old self-belief, but it sure can feel like it.

And so, the best way I’ve learned to work with fear, is by speaking to it gently, like a lonely child, hand outstretched: what have you got for me?

And you can end up surprised.

In the same way that monsters disappear when you look for them under the bed, it tends to be that practical limitations aren’t really ever the issue standing in our way. It’s our internal landscape and how possible we see something as being that determines our success. How able we see ourselves as moving through the challenges that we face.

And sometimes, especially when we’ve experienced trauma, we can get our excitement and fear signals all mixed up. After all, physiologically, they have a similar base. (That’s also why we end up thinking that people who give us butterflies are “the ones.”)

But, and let’s close on this, courage isn’t always at the ready like a glass of whiskey. It must be gathered, encouraged, and invited. We must create the right atmosphere in ourselves, by being gentle, kind, accepting, and open. We need to thank fear for its service and if we can help it, surround ourselves with the people and things that inspire, support, invite, push, and guide us, to see and get to that other side of fear — to follow our inner guidance and living in greater integrity with ourselves.