8: Being scared – doing it anyway

Early Denmark mornings had a habit of looking like deep winter afternoons even in high summer. This morning was no different. Outside the windows the skies were ashy and the wind was pushing clouds like trying to make room for the blue that never came.

I was staying with my friend Stine for my final days of Denmark, and she had made the most comfortable bed for me in her littlest child’s boy bedroom. I was cozy under a pink duvet and yellow cover. She had put roses on the night stand, even feminist literature and poetry by Rilke. I felt like I had been staying in a very fancy hotel with details curated specifically for me. The cat had even been snoring at my side until I fell asleep.

- This is how people live, I heard Fear yell into my ears:

- Some people have homes that are this wonderful. What are you doing opting out of having a home? You could have a home with things you love all around you. Why do you insist on jumping of a cliff into the complete unknown? This is crazy!!

I could hardly breathe now. Of course it didn’t help that I hadn’t really slept at all. Nightmares. Again.

For a moment I entertained the possibility of just dropping the whole thing. Maybe I didn’t get on that plane because I wasn’t supposed to? Maybe I should just stay put? It was crazy, too, all the money that would disappear into this, I could probably make a down payment on a nice, little house with that money. And what if I came home after adventuring finding that NOW I wanted to settle down a little only to realize my prospects of … nothing? Wouldn’t I then just be exactly back at where I started?

The sensible thoughts were not unknown to me. They were true, too. It would make so much more sense to stay and be cautious.

I tried to imagine staying. Being in Copenhagen still next week. More of what I knew. More of what was safe.

And the roar of anger from even deeper than Fear surprised me:

- HELL NO!!! GET UP!! RIGHT NOW!

At break fast Stine mirrored exactly what my morning had been when she asked me:

- Are you ready?

And I answered with a very steady voice:

- No.

That was the Gods honest truth.

- I’m not ready. And I’m really, really scared. But I’m doing it anyway.

She just nodded. Then smiled.

Stine walked with me across the road to the bus that would take me towards the airport – hopefully even on a plane this time.

She was the one who had recommended the movers to me, and didn’t understand one bit what had happened when they didn’t show. It wasn’t normal, they were really great. Just like the entire weirdness of me being denied access to a plane.

As we were simultaneously shaking our heads at the oddness of it all, I suddenly realized. Not being allowed on the plane the first time I tried to go on this grand adventure of mine was exactly the same scenario as the movers not showing up:

It was the gift of the pause.

It was getting that extra time to let the question rise to find an answer – instead of just rushing through this, getting too busy to feel any of the hard emotions involved.

This was the questions:

- Do you really want to do this?

And again – just like after the movers had announced that what, no, they weren’t coming – the answer was loud, in bold letters and with all of it’s friends the exclamation points:

- I AM DOING THIS!!! JUST TRY AND STOP ME!!!

I was still scared. Not just scared. I was scared to the point of being frozen with fear. My thoughts moved like through ten feet of wet heavy snow. My body like time had slowed to almost a complete halt and under water. It was the feeling of doing something irreparable harmful and really stupid.

It almost felt archetypal. Like I was back on the planes of the Stone Age with the tribe of fellow hunter-gatherers, and I was about to do something so weird and foreign that it would risk displeasing the community to the extent that they would kick me out. My deep visceral Fear told me that by wandering out alone, I would risk a very real shunning from the tribe. 

The thing is that Fear was right. Fear is always right. I was doing something really odd, I had never heard of anyone just up and leave – not since the tales of pilgrims from the Middle Ages or Buddhist monks in Thailand.

Fear was right, this was crazy.

That didn’t mean, though, that I should stop.

I could listen, know what the Lady Fear was saying – and do my thing anyway.

This was a truth I had held holy always:

Fear is ok. Anger is ok. Anxiety is ok. It is how we learn to exist WITH them that counts. It is how we learn to respect them and live WITH them that works.

THERE IS NO WRONG EMOTIONS.

Pretending we’re not angry, telling our children to be happy when they are not, trying to distract them when they are sad, trying to be forcedly content with the lives we lead, when we feel a gnawing in our guts.

That didn’t make sense to me.

When did we become so uncomfortable with emotions? When did they become wrong? When did happy become the only thing we were allowed to be?

And don’t get me started on tears. Just know that if you tell me not to cry, when I am crying, I will detonate nuclear-style on you.

It’s not sulphuric acid. It’s just salt water.

It’s even been proved that crying is wildly healthy as a coping mechanism. Could we please stop trying to make people not cry? Let’s just hand them a tissue instead.

*

On my very last day in Denmark I was petrified.

I did not try NOT to be.

And I did the thing I was heading out to do anyway.

*

That is how we do it, people. Hold that fear in love. Because freedom is its companion. Fear is just there to test us, to make sure, we got this, and when we venture forth while still afraid, freedom is right behind us. We will never be afraid forever. There are pauses.

So be afraid. But do the thing you dream of anyway.

At least let emotions be allowed existence. Be honest about them, too. Because being silent about what is happening inside you – that is one of the things that lead to suicide. In all of the forms it takes. It can be suicide by eating wildly unhealthy, or by drinking too much. And for some of us, actual death.

For me, I knew again that morning, faced with the possibility of just staying put, that it was not the answer at all. I needed to go. Staying, fighting to try and not anger the tribe so they would let me stay, was strangling me slowly. I was petrified of walking away. I was so sad about not being capable of fitting in. I was anxious about what would become of me. I had no idea what was waiting. All I knew was that staying was not an option. 

- I think maybe this is my electric shock, I told Stine at the bus stop as my yellow ride approached in the distance to take me away.

- None of the conventional therapies have worked. Now I have to do something radical to try and get better, maybe even heal.

She hugged me tight and waved until the doors to the bus closed. I watched her become smaller and smaller in the distance, and my eyes burned.

We can be honest with ourselves, without wallowing. Before we can do anything, first we have to be honest.

*

This is the pledge I made to myself: I was going to say it out loud when I was afraid. Not to get any ones reassurances, I had no need for the situation that was making me afraid diminished, I just wanted to be allowed to give space to the emotion that was there in the moment. I’m inviting was in, giving it room at the table, I was listening to what it had to say.

What would happen if we were all honest about what lives inside of us? Would the world fall? What if it didn’t? What if it only grew bigger, with more room to know what was really happening with us, letting us lead lives that was actually what we felt right in? What would happen if we admitted the things to ourselves we had kept hidden for so long, afraid of what others would say, afraid of judgment, maybe even from ourselves? Let’s be honest. Radically honest. Let’s love it all.

I knew how this worked from the past:

The point is not that you at any point magically stop being scared. You just stop letting it keep you from what you want to do. You simply take the next one step - even while petrified beyond belief. 

You simply continue walking. 

That's the Pilgrim's Way.