The Day I Said No to Fear

A Tiny Life Moment of being brave

It was Sunday afternoon before the first day of the school year. I stood next to my Mum with a big suitcase beside me. Staring ahead, my eyes locked on the boarding house 100 meters away from my feet. It was only two levels high, but it felt like an ominous tower that held an unknown future.

I had an overwhelming sense that I was about to be abandoned. I was on my own, at a school in a foreign country, knowing no-one. At that moment, I recognized I could either be overcome with fear, or I could step out of my comfort zone of invisibility and start making friends. I chose the latter.

This moment was a pivotal point in my life. I was 14 years old and adept at hiding myself and avoiding conflict at any cost. I am sure that it was only a few seconds that I stood there frozen to the spot, realizing I had to make a decision about what the next year of my life was going to look like. As an introvert, I was not great at initiating friendships with others and possibly believed that I was not able to.

I felt incredibly overwhelmed at that moment but somehow had enough wisdom to know that I could not afford to stay captivated by fear. Even though the only other option of making friends with others was incredibly scary to me, I was more afraid of what would happen to my mind if I succumbed to fear.

What amazed me about this situation was that it just took a choice. I needed to be faced with something that I perceived to be scarier so I would choose to accept the challenge and step way out of my comfort zone. I felt instant relief when I made this decision and the intensity of the fear immediately lifted.

Once I got inside the boarding house, found my room, and said goodbye to my Mum, I went looking for other girls who were already there, determined I was going to befriend at least one person that day. To my surprise, this was a lot easier than I had expected. I have a lot of cherished moments from my 3 years in that boarding house. I formed some great friendships during that time and still stay in touch with some of them.

It was not just about learning that I could actually initiate friendships. This was a life lesson that taught me about the power of choices, especially in the face of fear.

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