When I was 11 years old we moved from a town to a city. 

Previously, I’d walked home from school but now I was going to have to take a bus. Actually, two buses. I was to catch any bus from the bus stop outside my school and that would take me to the bus station in the middle of the city.

This was the fourth time I was starting at a new school. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was only half way through the total number of new schools I’d go to. My parents moved around a lot and I was the youngest of three children that moved with them.

At the bus station I had to ask which bus went to the road at the bottom of the road of our new home. As it turned out, the road at the bottom of ours covered half the city. So, even though the bus I got on went to that road, it was the wrong bus and I was miles away from where I needed to be.

The bus driver told me to stay on the bus in order to make the return trip to the bus station, where he’d point me to the correct bus to take. I was the only passenger on the bus all the way back to the bus station.

It was a very scary trip to take. Nothing was familiar to me and the bus trip just confirmed how big this new city was. 

This happened in a time way before cell phones, which meant that I had to rely on the help of strangers - armed only with our new address and the name of the road at the bottom of ours.

When we arrived back at the bus station the bus driver showed me the correct bus stop where I was going to find the right bus to get me home. But, he told me, the next bus was not due for some time and I must come with him to have a Fanta Orange while I waited.

I followed him over the big, wide road to a hotel where we sat at a table. 

No matter how many new schools I went to, I was always the shortest in my class, and my feet swung far above the ground. I can’t recall what we spoke about but at some point he started talking about a room upstairs in the hotel.

Inside me it felt like I split in two and my sister-self and I screamed into each other’s faces “RUN”. 

I leaped off that chair and as my tiny shoes hit the floor I flung over my shoulder “I think I’ll just wait at the bus stop” and half walked-ran out of the hotel as quickly as my little legs could carry me. 

I didn’t know why, but suddenly the multi-laned road wasn’t the scariest thing to face on my return trip to the bus station.

Life. Changing. Decision.

But that fear felt different

Something about the exchange made me scared. 

I had experienced a lot of fear that afternoon already - another first day at a new school, being alone in a strange city, asking strangers for help, being on the wrong bus, being alone for hours - but that fear felt different. I didn’t know why at the time but I acted on it.

My fear protected me. That’s the purpose of fear - to protect us.

It serves a vital purpose in our lives. Without fear we would all die early deaths and probably wipe out the species. 

Fear is part of our learning experience, and as we progress through life, we develop quite a repertoire of things to be fearful of.

A month after my 19th birthday I was standing in an airport about to experience my first flight. I’d worked hard to get here - a day job, a night job and a weekend job. The backpack on my back shining red with naivete, possibility and danger.

I stepped away from the 3 people who’d come to see me off. Holding up a hand to indicate that I needed a moment, I walked over to a big sturdy pillar, leant my backpack against it and slid to the floor with the grace of under cooked spaghetti. I stared at the ground thinking what am I doing???

My plan was to backpack around Europe for a year. I knew no-one who had done this and definitely no-one who’d done it alone but here I was on the precipice of a great adventure or the stupidest thing I’d ever done.

What was I thinking?! What am I doing??!! What made me think I could do this???!!!  What made me think this would be fun???!!! I had no answer to any of these questions.

I was paralysed with fear. 

Okay, okay, okay, I said to myself, what are our options now? Well, I told myself, if you hate it you can get on the next plane back. But, if you don’t go, you’ll never know.

Suddenly I was no longer paralysed. I didn't really have a plan of action, but I had managed to delay the fight or flight response. Don’t make a decision now, make it when you get to Paris!

Both of these points, both of these responses, both decisions were about fear. 

Remember the gorilla that accompanied me into the dentist’s office? He was there to protect me. Fear is often a healthy response. Fear pops up as a buffer, a pause, let’s just give this a little thought shall we?

Fear comes from love

What we need to acknowledge is that fear comes from love. Our reptilian brain wants to keep us safe and protect us and that’s what fear’s job is. 

But if we always listened to fear. If we always turn back when our stomach drops and takes us and our backpack to the floor with it we will miss out on some of the greatest adventures of our lives!

When I got up from the floor of that airport, fear hadn’t been vanquished. It  wasn’t that I was no longer fearful. No, what I did was pack that fear in my backpack along with everything else. It was coming on the trip with me. I couldn’t get rid of it so it had to come along.

Elizabeth Gilbert is best known for her book “Eat, Pray, Love” but my favourite of her books (so far) is “Big Magic: How to Live a Creative Life, and Let Go of Your Fear”. In there she talks about the fear of creative endeavour - like writing a book, which is a lengthy process where you encounter fear regularly. 

The solution that she’s developed is that she acknowledges that fear has a role to play and will accompany her on her book writing journey. She likens it to a road trip where fear is allowed in the car but isn’t allowed to decide where they’re going or what music they’re going to listen to.

As much as our fear’s intention is to protect us, if we want to grow, if we want to experience adventure and accomplishment we have to learn to find ways to move forward in spite of the fear; which often means taking the first, and the last steps, with our fear in step with us.

Unspooling at the bottom of that pillar in that airport is such an emotionally and visually vivid memory to me but so are the memories that came after that moment. At key, crucial moments in my life I’ve recalled that experience and then everything that came after.

It’s reminded me time and time again that I don’t have to overcome the fear. I just have to find a way to move forward with it.

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