I would like to normalize being scared. I am a naturally anxious person, and so are a lot of people I know, and I would like that to be okay.

Every step of the way in my journey so far I have been scared, and every time I’ve had at least one person say to me “Don’t be nervous” or “Don’t be scared.” Usually it’s followed up with something positive or reassuring like “You’ve got this.” And while I appreciate the sentiment… it’s not always very helpful, is it? Telling me not to be afraid won’t make me any less afraid, it’ll just make me feel like a failure for being so nervous. Besides, if I waited for the fear to go away before I did anything hard, I would never do anything.

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” ~ Mark Twain

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” ~ Nelson Mandela

“Choose the great adventure of being brave and afraid at the exact same time.” ~ Brené Brown

If you’ve read my story (About Me) then you would know that I have earned the right to be afraid. I’ve experienced a lot of the real world, and I know that there are real life consequences to my actions. I have experienced losing absolutely everything and having to rebuild my whole life from scratch. Of course it makes sense that I would be afraid of losing it all again.

I think it would be more helpful to teach people how to embrace their fear. It’s okay to feel paralyzed as long as you keep moving. It’s okay to feel like your legs won’t hold your weight as long as you keep standing. It’s okay to feel like you can’t quite fill your lungs with air, as long as you keep using your voice. That’s what we need to tell people today, not to try to beat the fear but to work with it.

For instance, my fear of public speaking is quite profound, despite the fact that I can perform in a theatre production with little difficulty (they are very different things, after all). And yet I keep on seeking out opportunities to do it, because I know that the more I do it, the more comfortable I will be. This summer I went to the Women+ In Physics Canada Conference to present a poster and give a talk, I gave a talk at the annual collaboration meeting for the experiment I was working on, and I participated in the Canadian Astrophysics Summer Student Talk competition (CASST). I also ran an EDI workshop at the lab, and gave a brief EDI snippet at CASST. I was terrified each and every single time. My fingers went numb, I was hyperventilating, and I blacked out each time so that I barely remember even giving the talks (although I am told they went very well – I even earned an honourable mention at CASST, putting me in the top six of 31 speakers!). And despite feeling that way, I have still signed up to give a talk at my school about my work over the summer in September. And I’m sure I will find more opportunities to give more talks. There is no stopping, only moving forward.

Remember what I said before about losing everything and having to start over? Pretty much everything scared me: getting to a new city on a Greyhound, getting into a shelter, getting help from available social services, finding that first job, getting my first apartment, making new friends… And then finally after years of working and getting myself stable, admitting that I want something more out of my life, that I want to risk it all again to pursue my dreams, which meant leaving my stable job and going to a new city completely alone again and begin what is essentially about a ten year committment to school after having not succeeded previously.

So if you’re in the middle of doing something hard and you’ve had people telling you not to be scared or afraid, I would like to tell you to ignore that advice. I want you to know that it’s absolutely okay to feel that fear. Fear does not mean that you won’t succeed. Fear just means that what you’re doing is important, it’s worth doing, and that you care.

“A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” ~ G.T. Shedd

“Courage does not always roar, sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.” ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

You’ll be okay. You’ll survive this. Know that you’re not alone in feeling that fear. Make this your mantra as you move forward:

“In whatever you do, feel the fear, and do it anyway.” ~ C.C. Monk