I used to feel very attached to the idea that I am fearless.
In these new moments of awakening, that makes total sense. I can see the world I grew up in–fearless was splashed across our culture as bravado and stoic invincibility. We weren’t taught to befriend fear. We were taught to conquer it. Dominate it. Push through despite it.
I think of the surf and skate culture of my hometown. Phrases that echo in my memories:
Charge it.
Crush it.
Send it.
Get wrecked.
Die trying.
And the girl-coded slogans were no better:
Anything boys can do, we can do better.
Tomboy tough.
Strong is the new pretty.
There was even a brand literally called No Fear. I laugh now, not because the intent was malicious, but because of how thoroughly it contributed to the very distortion I’m still untangling. Fear was everywhere, and yet we were expected not to name it. It was something to be feared, but we weren’t supposed to fear it.
My little decoder mystic, the one who watched from the edges, always wondered, “We have a word for this. That makes it real. So isn’t denying it a denial of reality itself?”
And yes, these are the thoughts I’d spiral into as a teenager dressed head-to-toe in black, flicking crayon red hair out of my eyes, puffing on a clove cigarette with Vonnegut next to coffee (hold the milk and sugar). It’s comical now, but only because I see that my self was trying to express something true, even in the drama of it.
I naturally see the world through the lens of power. I’ve always tracked the invisible threads:
Who holds the real power here?
Are they using it with integrity?
Is power being shared, hoarded, or weaponized?
But without alignment to my self, those questions got distorted through fear and became a story about survival. Rather than surrendering to fear–acknowledging it, feeling it, and letting it move–I took up a flag and made a silent vow:
I will not be that girl.
The one who hesitates.
The one who cries.
The one who shows her fear.
I equated fear to failure. Softness to danger. Sensitivity with shame. A need for protection as weakness. No one would ever see me scared.
HA. This belief is so ridiculous it pains my chest to write it down. I spiral into a messy combination of coughing, laughing, and crying because even though I can name the truth now, the ironic comic relief is that I’m still reconditioning that bullshit.
I still hear myself say, “I’m not scared” and my inner voice gently giggles, “Sure, sweetie. We know that loop.”
Intellectually, I know the belief is false, which is why I can laugh, but my damn nervous system still believes it’s how we’re going to survive cause it had room to settle in. It became a way of being.
Fortunately, wisdom reminds me that I don’t need to conquer my nervous system. I don’t need to eject out of the spiral. I need to give it space–to slowly disprove the belief, through lived evidence. Over and over again.
No Fear is a fallacy.
I’m not fearless.
I’m also not fear.
Fear is a feeling. It’s not who I am.
It lives within me, but it isn’t me.
Honestly, it’s more like a puppy. It follows me around, night and day. It barks for attention. It chews on my shoes. It tries to crawl into my lap at inopportune times. And my job, absurd as it feels, is to love it. Not ignore it. Not to shoot it in the face like Kristi Noem. Just… stay with it.
Fear is not my enemy.
Exiling myself when fear shows up, that’s the real thread.
And so, if I can feel fear, live with it, let it move through me, and stay with my self, that, my friends, is how I begin to not give a fuck about being fearless. It just is what it is. And maybe, that’s enough.
