Bravery isn’t just about doing things like jumping off buildings. Bravery is also about internal things: trusting someone, letting them help you, being vulnerable – those are the aspects of bravery that I find the hardest. So I practice with the ones I find scary but that I’m able to pep-talk myself through.

I’m really good at getting myself to do things I don’t want to do. I worked in the fitness industry for 8+ years so making myself do physical things when I don’t want to do them was, at times, essential. I’ve been so tired I just wanted to cry but still had a class to teach so I slapped on a smile and did it anyway… this soon turned into ignoring broken bones, severe sprains and more – hey, I didn’t say it was healthy.

As a result I got pretty good at talking myself into things and gently convincing myself to just keep putting one foot in front of the other when all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep for a week. I talked myself into jumping off the NZ sky tower (192 meters /630 ft ) and I’m terrified of heights. Like, I was physically shaking, almost threw up and, at times, unable to move, afraid of heights.

I have a MUCH better relationship with talking myself into things these days and I’ve learnt the balance point of what’s healthy encouragement V’s self-abuse.

I’ve used this much healthier approach to help me do some pretty scary things – things like learning to swim in open water, racing my first triathlon, solo-backpacking adventures and more.

Practicing being brave in the form of those physical things to help me be brave in other ways:

When I’m scared about opening my mouth and speaking out I remind myself: You jumped off the NZ sky tower, you can open your mouth and say words.

When I’m scared to let someone in and get close to me, I remind myself: you have literally climbed mountains, you took that step-by-step, you can do the same here.

You swam under the pier and that was scary as F and you knew when you did it that you’d have to do it again on the way back – you can write about your feelings and put it on the internet.

You swam out into the deep water and you were deeply uncomfortable for the whole time… and you were ok so you can be ok with feeling uncomfortable for 5 minutes while you let someone help you by carrying your suitcase up the stairs. ( I have “stuff” around accepting help from others…)