Hi Booth,

I remember where I was when I had the realization that there was an undercurrent of fear running through my life. Imagine an underground stream that you accidentally discover because water bubbled up in an unexpected place.

To say that I was surprised would be an understatement. Because, at the time (circa 2010-2011), I fancied myself a superhero.

But once I knew it was there, I couldn’t unsee it. And now, I felt it.

Since then, I have been invited to face every fear I knew I had (except one and I pray I never have to face that one) and some that I didn’t know were there:

losing my mom,

losing my mind (how I thought about mental illness back then),

losing hope to the point of planning suicide,

ending my marriage,

fighting for equal custody of my children,

leaving a job that I loved,

financial ruin,

borrowing a car for six months because I couldn’t afford to replace one that had been totaled in an accident,

telling my story publicly despite the stigma and the risks to my employability,

no longer being able to afford my own home,

cohabitating with my ex to help keep the whole family afloat,

reimagining and rebuilding income streams from scratch four times in five years,

facing and healing the unresolved trauma in my body (still ongoing)*,

ever so carefully testing the limits of my re-built physical and mental health,

learning how to navigate life and work against the current of perfectionism and hyper-achievement that I thought was keeping me safe for all of those years,

and exploring what it means to thrive; to live beyond sheer survival mode (active work in progress).

My brain isn’t afraid anymore. I have walked through the fear portal. Again and again. And I am still here.

My nervous system, however, is still catching up.

What could life look like if we were not in survival mode all of the time?

What I know about fear, conscious and unconscious, is that it would have us resort to any number of potentially damaging and destructive behaviors in an attempt to “stay safe”.

Often, these behaviors have been anchored into our nervous systems through repetition. And often, they are more damaging to us than the thing we are afraid of.

Time and time again, I have learned that when we turn and face our fear— when we allow ourselves to contemplate the worst possible outcome, when we sit with those terrible emotions that feel like they are going to swallow us whole, when we ground our nervous systems and choose to respond instead of react, when we acknowledge and listen to our fears, ask for what we need, and tend gently to ourselves and to each other instead of running away–then the fear loses its power.

And when we share our fears with each other, when we recognize that we are all human, that we are all afraid, and that none of us can do this life alone, we have the opportunity to connect, heal and build healthier families, businesses and communities.

We have a choice in the face of fear.

Love,

Booth

*For those with unresolved trauma, the body often thinks we cannot survive “going back” to heal it even though we survived the traumatic event. We may feel extraordinary internal (and nervous system) resistance to doing the very work that will help us be free. The good news is that there are many trauma healing modalities that do not require digging up our memories. Which is good news too because sometimes we cannot recall those memories anyway. Reply to this email if you would like more resources on trauma healing.