Back in pre-Covid days, I flew to Crete to spend a week in the sunshine with my family. This was a big deal for me, because it’s a more than 3 hour flight from where we lived in Belgium, and I don't like being up in the air for longer than 2 hours.

I suffer from anxiety, and very few things make me more anxious than turbulence. I go straight into panic and start hyperventilating, which obviously isn’t how anyone wants to spend a flight.

For months I thought about how I would cope with this longer flight - I found my old Kindle Fire and stocked up on games, magazines, books and episodes of The Nanny (don’t judge!).

I bought herbal anti-anxiety pills, downloaded apps with meditations that promised to calm my fear of flying, and made lists of things I could do on board to distract myself from the fact that I was flying.

The flight over to Crete went well, but the flight back did not. We hit some strong unexpected turbulence and my system went straight into that panicked place where I can’t breathe and can’t stop crying.

The staff were amazing, especially one young man who said something to me that really stuck: he said he really admired me, because even though I am this scared, I still travel.

Whenever I thought of myself and flying, I thought of myself as weak and defective in some way, as in unable to handle a normal thing that everyone else was able to handle.

I never saw the positive side.

I focused on beating myself up and feeling lesser than.

He could see something more: that I was willing to do something scary in spite of fear.

And as I thought about this and let it sink in, I realised that this is the answer to so many of life’s challenges: being willing to do things even when you’re scared.

Being willing to feel the whole range of emotions, even if you’re scared that if you let yourself feel then you’ll drown in sadness.

Being willing to express your weirdness, even if you’re scared of judgement.

Being willing to stop doing and take a break, even if you’re scared that if you let yourself rest you’ll never feel like doing again.

It really is that simple - the truth is that you’ll may always be scared of certain things, that feeling might not go away. But you don’t need to let it stop you from experiencing what you want from life.

The only foolproof way of dealing with fear is to feel it, but not let it make your decisions for you.

Take a few minutes right now to consider: where have you been letting fear stop you from realising your dreams, from stepping into the reality you would love to experience?

It’s ok to feel scared, everyone does.

Let yourself feel scared and then do what you can to make it easier on yourself, and take that step you're scared to take. 

You can do it. You really, really can.

Reply to this email and let me know: what are you going to do, in spite of feeling afraid?

Love,