Worries and fear are part of life – also for me.
They are always there. We worry because we can't control the future, and in a desperate attempt to do so, we try to figure out how we might still be able to. Worries can take many forms, such as realizing we have no more oatmeal left for breakfast tomorrow, or thinking, "What if we lose our jobs?" or "What if people do not like us?" All of this I experience too; I am by no means special or some kind of superhuman when it comes to these things.
But there is one important thing I have realized: no matter where I am or what my life circumstances look like, I still feel worry and fear. That is why I have decided to focus them on other things. I want to worry about our dream to homeschool, living on a remote island in Indonesia, our unconventional work life, where we never really know what will be in the bank account next month, snorkeling with my children in the open sea, and whether our relationship can handle being so intensely together all the time.
In the present, I worry about that with the rainy season, we have gotten a lot of mosquitoes, some of which could carry dengue. I also worry about small things, like the Instagram post I just posted about our life. Who do I think I am? Will anyone even care to get a glimpse into our life, and what could it possibly give them?
As you can see, I have simply swapped the worries I would have anyway with other ones – fully aware that they are part of life, no matter where I am in life.
I do not consider myself a very brave person; I am just like you, reading this. But I have practiced and gained valuable experience in making big, some might even call life-changing, decisions. And now these experiences tell me that it can work out, which is why it has become easier and easier.
When I was 15 and had just finished boarding school, I traveled to Iceland for almost a year. I wanted to work on a farm with Icelandic horses. I found the opportunity myself, reached out, and presented it to my mother, who fortunately supported me, and off I went, almost a year in a foreign country, in a different culture, far out in the countryside.
For that story, I should mention that I had some tough years from about age 12 to 14. To be frank, I became part of a very unhealthy community and did things a young girl should not do, perhaps as a reaction to my family falling apart when my parents divorced. Boarding school became a huge shift in a new direction with a new social circle. So the idea of me traveling to Iceland alone as a 15-year-old seemed like a really good idea to my mother. If my story had not been like that, if I had not had some hard years as a young teenager, my story would probably have looked different, so now I am grateful for it.
That is where my adventure began, and where I found my courage, because things could only get better, there was not much to lose. In the years that followed, I worked in Italy at a campsite, later in Switzerland as a ski guide, spent a year in Asia as a volunteer and backpacker, and later on a working holiday visa in Australia, where I met my now-husband Luis, before we moved to Bali, and I took my yoga teacher training, which laid the foundation for the yoga school I co-founded in 2017 with my partner.
I have had a sea of worries and fear, made countless bad decisions, and experienced many failures, but among all this, I have also achieved dreams and created an inner compass that now tells me: if something scares me, gives me butterflies in my stomach, but there is still a huge desire to do it, then I must try to dive in. So here I am, just like you, with worry and fear but I did it anyway.
It can feel complicated inside oneself, with a sea of worry and fear, almost overwhelming. Something must be let go of, waved goodbye to, perhaps even old identities and a sense of security that at least felt like it had been built up. That pain is hard, but it is the consequence, the price we must pay.
I remind myself not always to trust my feelings; the body tends to say NO to new, unknown things. It wants to keep me safe and secure, but it is also that "security" that holds me back from turning my dreams into reality, from taking the leap.
To you reading this, remember that you can go far with small steps. A little action toward something new, and remember to start today, not tomorrow. We have a tendency to postpone these things.
Written by Maria Frisch, December 2024
