You can gently walk towards fear.

I have been told my whole life that I am courageous.

As someone who has always considered myself cautious, this used to confuse me.

I was raised in a loving household where both my mother and father instilled in me that I could do anything — nothing was beyond my reach. The only limitation they gave me was that I couldn’t do everything. This became the foundation for my curiosity and ambition: I didn’t wonder if I could do things, but rather which things were worth giving my time and heart to.

At first it was sports. I signed up for recreational basketball with a friend when I was 11, realized my height was good for something, enjoyed being active and it was socially pretty good for me so I decided to stick to it. I was never someone who played fearlessly, I was never the most athletic player either, but I was always watching what people did and why. I pushed myself- but gently, watching the mistakes, the injuries, the successes along the way and taking notes.

Looking back, my biggest accomplishment in my basketball career wasn’t a championship or a trophy — it wasn’t making the university team or placing second in Canada during my first year. It was when my mom secretly signed me up for the provincial team tryouts when I was fifteen — and I showed up.

I was terrified. I was angry with her for doing it without asking me. But now, it’s one of the moments I’m most grateful for.

I picture fear like a fence:
everything you know exists safely within it, and everything unknown — what your body labels as unsafe — lies just beyond. Every-time you try something that scares you, the fence moves back, making the physical area that you can travel safely, much wider. That day, my mom gave me a gentle push beyond that fence, and in doing so, helped me realize that I could keep moving it on my own.

Since then by age 24, I’ve been cut from my university team, switched paths to study visual arts, traveled SE Asia alone, started two businesses, became a tattoo artist, lived in another country, completed three art residencies, and followed nearly every spark of inspiration that I had the desire and energy for— gently, cautiously, curiously. I am currently in Indonesia making art everyday in the jungle and am living a life that my future self thought was possible, but that my body didn’t know was safe until I looked fear in the eye and gently walked through it.

What I’ve learned is this: fear keeps the present you alive.
So if you’re trying to become someone new, or step into a version of yourself that exists just beyond the fence — you’ll have to meet fear.

But here’s the thing no one tells you: it doesn’t have to be violent.
You don’t have to charge through it. You can walk gently.

Approach fear with caution and care. Let yourself shake, breathe, and take small steps.
Every time you do, your body learns that you can do hard and scary things and still be okay.

Fear hasn’t disappeared — I don’t think it ever will.
My inner child still looks at the world and sometimes wants to hide, unable to make sense of its destruction and despair.

Yet somewhere within that fear, I’ve found strength — a soft kind of courage that lets me keep moving anyway.
If I hadn’t learned to walk toward it, gently, I wouldn’t be here now — living proof that softness can still lead you toward your dreams.