When my partner got a text from his friends, “We’re doing a polar plunge,” I prayed: Please help me learn to be brave. To celebrate the new year, they were going to jump in the Atlantic, which on that day was a balmy 42 degrees. They were asking if he wanted to join.
Nobody asked if I wanted to go — they knew better.
But so does the universe. It knows better. When you ask it to help you be brave, it doesn’t magically make you a certain way…it provides you with the opportunity to practice bravery.
“I’m in!” I told him.
“Wait, what?” He grinned. “You’re going to jump in the ocean with us?”
“Yes! Now let’s go before I change my mind.”
I walked back to our rental with conviction. I hadn’t actually brought a bathing suit with me on the trip (why would I?), so I wore my giant black period panties and a decades-old sports bra. The whole way down to the beach — wrapped in at least 18 layers — I mentally prepared myself to take off my clothes on the blustery, freezing beachfront. Never mind the water. I couldn’t even contemplate that yet. I was just trying to figure out how to get undressed.
A voice guided me: Don’t think, just do.
And so I did.
There is a video of me that day, shocking everyone by stripping down to my skivvies on the rocky shore and walking directly into the slate-gray ocean without stopping. Once there, I screamed like I was being murdered, dunked myself up to my neck (still not getting my hair wet, thank you very much!), and ran back out. I shook violently while trying to get redressed, but once I was back in my parka, I swear, something was different.
I had certainly done scary things in my adult life, but never with stoicism.
I’d usually whined or built up to it or freaked out. I’m a verbal processor by nature, and I always thought talking about the things I was scared of would help me do them. Walking into the water without hesitation and without any narration on my part was something new.
I was being brave for myself, not so that anyone else would think I was brave.
It was entirely new, and as unbelievable as it sounds, I felt like I’d matured a lifetime in that single choice. It makes absolute sense to me now: I’m convinced we can exponentially change our lives in a single moment just by doing something we didn’t believe we were capable of.
I call it the Holy Shit Moment.
As in, Holy shit, I can’t believe I just did that! Between one breath and the next, you change the way you see yourself: I can’t believe I just ran a marathon without dying! I can’t believe I just asked out a stranger! I can’t believe I just got a tattoo! You accomplish something you thought was just for “other people,” and it’s impossible to go back to who you believed you were before.
In that moment, wearing wet underwear on a beach in Cornwall, I made a decision. I would spend the entire year having as many Holy Shit Moments as I could. I committed to spending the next 12 months doing things that terrified me.
What happened as a result was a kind of recovery of spirit that could only be described as divine.
The kind of thing you see someone do and think, Wow! That’s amazing, but I could never…That’s the magic. That’s the special sauce. That’s the it-will-change-your-whole-life-if-you-do-it kind of thing. During that year, whenever I saw something and my immediate reaction was, “No way!” I forced myself to go.
I went zip-lining and skydiving. I ran a marathon without any training (and not only did I not die, but I finished a few minutes faster than the pace I trained six months to accomplish!). I went freediving with sharks, no cage included! I climbed a mountain. I learned to ski by falling down all sorts of snowy mountains — I absolutely loved it. It’s become one of my most beloved hobbies. I surf now, too — not well or anything, but it fulfills all my Blue Crush fantasies and makes me feel so cool. I learned to play guitar and write music…I’m pretty terrible at those, too, but damn, I went ahead and did it anyway. I swam in the ocean (getting my hair wet!) more in that year than in the previous 39 combined. I talked more to strangers and held more compassion for myself and others. By doing scary things nobody ever saw on my social media, I learned so damn much about myself and who I really am.
I realize now that I wasn’t tired of being afraid — I was tired of my fears keeping me from living my life more fully.
After a year of doing scary stuff, I became aware of two really surprising things. The first is that there really are two kinds of fear.
- Clear and present danger of a very real threat. If an ax murderer is chasing you or a mountain lion just showed up on your hiking trail, the fear you’re feeling is a good thing; it’s 160,000 years of evolution working to keep you alive.
- Imaginary fear. This is the kind of fear we create by dreaming up what might happen. This includes anything you’ve never done, places you’ve never gone, conversations you’ve never had, and people you don’t know.
The second thing I learned is that while the first kind of fear is (for the most part) a good thing, that second kind of fear? The fear of what might happen? It’s fake news. Not only is it fake news, but it’s controlling your life.
But you created that fear, which means you can destroy it.
I still get scared sometimes, but I treat it like the skydiving instructor who helped me jump tandem. I was scared when we were still on the ground, but as we approached 14,000 feet and I was petrified, he acknowledged my fear while adjusting our harness. As we moved closer to the door, he commiserated aloud, “It is scary. You just gotta do it, though, right?”
And then he jumped out of the plane.
And since I was wearing him like a backpack, I was suddenly freefalling through the sky.
That’s how you have to face your fears: head on.
Adapted excerpt from What If YOU Are the Answer?: And 26 Other Questions That Just Might Change Your Life by Rachel Hollis (Authors Equity). Copyright © 2025.
