The Year We Overcame Our Fears

A Thanks-giving tribute to 2024

This is a personal post.

It’s Thanksgiving Day, and I have a confession to make: Up until now, I’d never thought about how cool it is that we have a whole holiday about being grateful. I’m feeling kinda like this kid:

We may not always “get it right” with how we express our gratitude, as evidenced by how Thanksgiving so often devolves into piggish gluttony. Memes abound about how nobody really wants to say grace over the food — they just want to hurry up and eat! Then, mere hours later, Black Friday greed rears its violent head, betraying how woefully empty our “thanks giving” prayers were.

But enough of my cultural criticisms. I am thankful we have a day devoted to thankfulness, and I’m thankful for one blessing particular that kept showing up over and over this past year, so much that it became the prevailing theme of my 2024.

That is: Overcoming fear.

She Takes the Wheel

At the beginning of this year, I was a nervous driver. I didn’t start learning until I was 24. Then it took me 5 years to get my driver’s license due to anxiety — I kept putting it off, stalling, avoiding…

Even after I got it, I only drove as strictly necessary: work, grocery store, that’s it. In fact, when I moved from Tennessee to North Carolina this May, two friends had to drive in to help me, because I was too scared to make the mere 3-hour trip alone.

But now? I zip around all day, by choice — and actually look for excuses to drive, because I enjoy it so much! I finally know the meaning of “joy riding.”

Just a year ago, this was inconceivable to me. I thought I’d always be someone who felt shaky behind the wheel. Turns out, a whole new version of myself was waiting on the other side of that fear: a version of me who is more adventurous, more chill, more free.

It’s funny, how we cling to our current identity so desperately, as if all our past identities haven’t been buried under the sands of Time, and as if all our future identities won’t share the same fate.

To what, do we actually cling, when we cling to our current “self”?

Why?

photo by Mickey Z.

She Spreads Her Wings

Once in Asheville, I was itching to perform my music onstage. I’d been releasing music online for 3 years at this point, but had still not done any live shows. In fact, I hadn’t sung solo onstage for 13 years.

But, yet again, I was too afraid — I didn’t want to be up there all by myself.

So I went searching for bandmates. None of these meetings led to a musical collaboration (though one meeting did unexpectedly lead to me adopting my cat Jupiter! 🐈‍⬛ So it wasn’t totally in vain…)

Eventually, while driving myself home one day (gotta love the supporting plot line 😂) I had a massive breakthrough.

I realized I was sick of being “the girl who doesn’t sing onstage anymore because she was forced to perform for money as a child.”
That narrative, though seemingly true, didn’t have to be true anymore.

What if I could become “a woman who can get up and sing at an open mic, just because?”
And what if I could become her in an instant?

I decided, in that moment, that I was going to drive myself to an open mic and just sing!

So that’s what I did!

Voice shaking, knees trembling, I fucking did it!

She Confronts the Monster

When Hurricane Helene devastated my mountain community in Swannanoa, I knew “fear” unlike ever before. Though I’d already had a traumatic childhood, living through this disaster made me experience real “fight or flight” for the first time in adulthood.

Having struggled so hard to build an independent life in Swannanoa, only to have it washed away by the hurricane, I made the decision to go back to Tennessee to live with my estranged mother.

Funny enough, my decision to estrange myself from her in the first place required me to overcome many fears: fears of her retaliation, of what people would say, of grieving a person who was still alive...

But then, to move back into our family home with her, I had to face a different set of fears: fears of processing my post-hurricane trauma in front of her, of being triggered, of being sucked back into the painful old dynamic that caused me to cut her off in the first place…

Whether I was moving away from her, or towards her, there was a fear to overcome. A new version of myself to become.

Thankfully, Jupiter’s presence in the house dramatically shifted the energetics, so much so that there has not been even one single fight since my return. A miracle.

photo by Mickey Z.

She Brings a Friend Along for the Adventure

2 weeks ago, my bess fren

Mickey Z.

overcame his fear of flying and got on a plane for the first time in 13 years, just to see me & Jupiter!

He wrote about it here:

Mounting up with wings like eagles

All that fear and anxiety leading up to the plane ride, was rendered impotent on the other side of the experience. Now we’re already planning to travel together soon!

How quickly, courage is rewarded!
How pointlessly, we delay the reward!

As I overcome more and more fear, I look around notice that my friends are overcoming their fears, too, in all the dimensions of life. They’re taking chances in love. They’re taking risks in business. They’re “showing up” on social media (even when they think “The Cringe” might kill them 🤪).

photo by Mickey Z.

^ While Mickey was here visiting, we went to a labyrinth and each did the ritual of asking God a question, walking the circuit, then listening for the answer at the center.

When it was my turn, I asked God, “What do you want to say to me?”

In response, God asked me, “What are you so afraid of?”

Imagine that. After facing my fears all year, there remain more fears to face.

Fears of leveling-up in my writing career, my music career, my finances, my spiritual growth, my fasting practice…

I could go on.

In fact, I will.

One beautiful, bold, brave step at a time.

🪽

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My Writing, Courses and Coaching: www.Alicen-Grey.com

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My prayer for you: To become all that you dream 🩶