Fear is just a feeling – don’t let it stop you.

I’m lying on my mat, in a dimly lit yurt, listening to the muffled sounds of those around me. It’s early in the trip, but everyone else seems to be deep into their psychedelic journeys while I’m still waiting for mine to begin. The longer it takes, the more anxious I’m feeling.

I’m not just nervous – my entire body is vibrating with adrenaline. It’s my fifth or sixth ayahuasca ceremony but, clearly, this doesn’t get easier. I'm trying to ‘let go’ but I’m too terrified; hanging onto this reality so tightly, my breath feels constricted. I try to focus my mind on my breath – one shallow, shaky breath after another – but I can’t stay with it for more than a few seconds.

I might have a panic attack right here. Oh God. My body registers the possibility, my heart pounds even more loudly in my ears, and a crimson heat washes over me – the unimaginable, excruciating embarrassment just thinking about it. Me having to call the helpers over, or worse, running out of the yurt as a hyperventilating mess.

No – I push the thought away. I take another deep breath. I begin to wonder if the medicine is even going to work. Is this it? I lie there stewing in my own confusion, struggling to breathe properly, and then a thought suddenly comes into my awareness: My fear is holding me back. I need to surrender and trust the process for the medicine to work. And then I get the deeper message, my first internal revelation:

My fear isn’t just holding me back in this ceremony, it’s holding me back in my life.

Ohhh. My whole body floods with recognition – and relief. Finally this whole horribly uncomfortable experience starts to make sense. There is a point to this suffering. The medicine is ‘working’. I realise I’m being forced to confront the full force of my fear. I’m being made to feel its weight; its power; its hold on me.

I can’t wriggle away. I can’t think it away. My fear has me entirely in its grip. A dense, powerful, physical presence that’s engulfing my whole being. I want to rip it off, like a heavy, suffocating coat. Instead, the medicine gently guides me to accept that my fear is there, to recognise it, to stop fighting it, and feel it fully.

And just like that, everything shifts. The next part of my trip becomes like a breathwork class with the universe. For what seems like hours, Ayahuasca teaches me how to breathe through my fear. Inhaling 1, 2, 3, 4… and exhaling 1, 2, 3, 4. Breathe. Stay present. Allow. That’s it. That’s the secret.

I realise that when I fight the fear, it just creates more anxiety, which only intensifies the feelings more. When I accept the uncomfortable sensations and keep breathing, the feelings become more manageable. (What we resist persists, right?)

“Fear is just a feeling – don’t let it stop you.” These words from the medicine were gentle, but stern. I begin to understand that fear is an energy; one that I need to learn to work with, not against. Instead of being scared of my fear and hoping it will go away, I have to start building a relationship with it.
I realise that because I’ve hated these scared, weak, insecure feelings so much, I’d been doing everything I can to avoid them (which meant avoiding a lot of things in life). My ‘winning’ strategy had been to hold back in life until I felt less fearful – not realising that I’d only feel less fearful by taking action.

Like the classic book advice: “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. Exactly that. In her book, Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert writes, “Fear is important. But bad fear will hold you back. Both fear and creativity should be passengers on your creative journey, but fear should stick to the backseat.”

This was precisely my message from Mother Aya: I need to let my fear be part of my journey. The reality is, I have no choice. There’s no future scenario that I can evolve as a person without coming up against my fear, so it’s either embrace my fear and push through with it kicking and screaming at me – or stay stuck.

I look back at this experience today and recognise this was a huge turning point in my life. I didn’t realise how stuck I’d really been at the time. How many potential transformations had come to an abrupt end, or been avoided completely because of my overwhelming sense of fear and insecurity.

The next morning, in the sharing circle, I was challenged to put my ‘training’ to the test. Public speaking was one of my biggest fears in life, and as I watched the microphone inch closer to me in the circle, I felt the usual panic arise. Flushed face, heart racing, sweaty palms, dry mouth…

Breathe. Stay present. Allow.

Suddenly the microphone was in my hand. All eyes were on me. My head felt like it was spinning but I resisted the urge to mutter an excuse and pass the microphone on to the person beside me. Instead, I took a deep breath and began to speak, one trembling, faltering sentence at a time.

It wasn’t comfortable at any point. It definitely wasn’t Ted talk material. But it was a huge personal milestone. Nothing had actually changed in terms of my internal reaction – I’d felt the same paralysing fear that I always do with public speaking – but I’d been a witness to it, not been overwhelmed by it. It was possible to handle it differently and have a different outcome.

Leaving the retreat later that day, I felt euphoric, like I’d fought the beast and won. I was cured! Of course, I soon found out, I wasn’t. As much as I would have loved for my fear to have been permanently diminished from that point on, it was just the beginning of me developing a better relationship with it.

Today, I still struggle with fear and anxiety. Public speaking is far from my favourite thing to do. But I’m getting better at pushing through the discomfort – sweaty palms and all. Ayahuasca didn’t ‘cure me’, but it has freed me in a lot of ways.

I’ve accepted the fact that fear is part of my journey (a very vocal passenger, no doubt) but I don't have to choose a different road because of it. Just knowing it will be there – huffing and puffing in protest – makes it more predictable, and less powerful.

Feeling fear doesn’t make me weak, or less capable, as I’d previously believed. It just makes me human. When I feel fear in response to challenges, I now see the positive. It means I’m pushing myself to grow.  In the process, I’m getting stronger, braver and more confident in myself. I’m learning I can handle a lot more than I thought I could – and I think that’s probably true for all of us.