Moments of Bravery

I’d like to give a warm and sincere thank-you to all my new (and not-so-new) readers as I transition into a new blogging sphere! Thank you for your support.

If you’re new to this space, hi, hello! I’m Elise, a twenty-seven-year-old Nashville-based lawyer with a heart for serving others. If you read my Instagram bio (which my beloved millennial generation knows to be a definitive guide to a person’s essential self), you’ll encounter three descriptors: Advocate, Adventurer, Atrévete. [1]

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with someone that went a bit like this:

Friend: I want to travel, but the whole idea of it makes me anxious. What if something bad happens?

Me: But traveling is so worth it! And once you’ve reached your destination, all those fears rush out the door!

Friend: But I’m not brave like you! (Author’s note: I am not engaging in self-puffery here; this person really did call me brave, LOL).

After a few minutes of thought, I shared this story below:

When I was in law school, I started suffering from severe panic attacks. I couldn’t sleep, eat, or focus. I could barely get out of bed most mornings. Even worse than this was the fear that I experienced once I got in bed—that’s when the worries and stressors of the day started swirling around my mind like little demons. It got so bad that for one entire, terrible month, I couldn’t leave my apartment without my hands shaking. Getting in the car and going somewhere was the scariest thing I could imagine.

So one day, I finally opened up to my best friend about my crippling anxiety. Having experienced panic attacks her whole life, my friend understood, and she gave me this advice: life sits on the other side of fear.

I recently watched someone that I love ride a gondola for the first time in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. This gondola was a small, red cabin that held about 4-6 people. It lifted riders up the side of an enormous mountain—like a ski lift. The whole experience from the ground to the top of the mountain took about 20 minutes.

Although my husband and I tried to console our friend that a gondola ride was perfectly safe and she had nothing to fear, she was crying by the time she got to the top of the mountain, and firmly swore that she would absolutely not ride it back down. It took a few hours of shopping, exploring, and vista-glimpsing to calm this person down.

And then darkness fell over the mountain, and it was time to ride the gondola back down. My friend looked at me and told me she was so terrified that she thought she might faint. She asked me (again, why do people think this??) how I got to be so brave.

Bravery is different for us all, was all I could think to respond.

I got on that gondola with her and watched fear and terror pass over her face. She squeezed her eyes shut and clutched our hands, but she didn’t cry.

And then, right before we reached the halfway point, she did something amazing: she opened her eyes and peeked out. Christmas lights lit up the valley beneath us. A wisp of blood-orange sky disappeared behind the mountain, fading into blue, then black. Stars twinkled above, and my friend cracked a small smile. The beauty from this view was so special that she couldn’t help but be happy to see it. And best of yet, she got to witness it due to her determination to not let something scare her out of adventure.

At the bottom of the mountain, I found my answer to her earlier question—how did you get to be so brave?

“You’re the brave one!” I exclaimed. She was brave because she feared something but then decided that the adventure, the moment, and the payoff of opening her eyes and looking at the mountain around her was so much stronger than the fear.

You can’t be courageous if you’re not afraid in the first place. And as I learned in law school, the day I forced myself to walk out of my apartment and explore the city instead of lying in bed fearing the world around me, was the day I decided that I couldn’t let anxiety hold me back.

Life (and adventure) sits on the other side of fear.

I will never stop advocating for people to get out of their shells. I will never stop daring my friends and family to take a new, more intriguing look at the world. I’m in no way advocating for recklessness or stupidity. As my favorite podcast hosts, Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark of My Favorite Murder would say: we should always “look and listen” to prioritize safety when traveling. But imagine the feeling of standing at the top of a mountain you were petrified to climb, or watching tiny trees pass under your feet in a gondola that scared the living daylights out of you, or seeing a wild dolphin swim past you in the middle of an ocean you were terrified to jump in. These are the moments that bring color, lightness, and joy to our lives.

We travelers are a brave bunch. And for both new and not-so-new readers, this is really the goal of my blog: to inspire enough curiosity, awe, and astonishment about the world, that these feelings will overpower the fears that try to limit them. That’s what even one day means—even one day, one hour, one moment of bravery in of your life can change your world.

So, friends. I’d love to hear stories from you all about the times you’ve conquered your fears—whether that’s traveling, or going to school, or working, or just living life. Every time you let curiosity and wonderment win over fear and anxiety, you become that much stronger. And I can promise you that the world will repay you for your strength in remarkable, beautiful, and extraordinary ways.

[1] Dare, in Spanish, which is my favorite language to speak!