To me, being fearless doesn’t mean being without fear. I believe being fearless is taking on the things that scare you most. Being fearless means being unafraid and unapologetic about who you are. It means being brave enough to identify what you fear and facing it head on, even when your instincts tell you to run away.
Fearlessness is something that I believe should be admired, which is why I’m so excited to share my latest series with y’all: Fearless Friday! Every Friday, I’ll be sharing stories of brave people and how they’ve faced their fears.
Today, I’d like to introduce y’all to Ally from HydroSupraLicked. Read her fearless story below!
HydroSupraLicked is a blog is a life style blog. I have a heavy focus on music since I am an event promoter for Two:Tone, drum & bass weekly in Deep Ellum, and have thrown an annual psychedelic trance festival with Atrium Obscurum. I went on a raw food diet with my mom mom about 2 years ago so I like to eat clean 80% of the time; living in Dallas it would be a shame to avoid these amazing restaurants and brunch. Natural relative activities are blogged about, I encourage everyone to spend as much time outdoor while listening to excellent music and eating organic food.
What does being fearless mean to you?
Fearlessness means knowing that I am about to walk into a situation that I have no idea what will happen and I am going to be pushed out of my comfort zone but still going forward. I know that a majority of my fearless moments all come from knowing I will be a stronger person or have gained an amazing experience from proceeding with the action, several times a couple of broken bones and an amazing story have been the outcome. Few things top bragging rights, well for a Leo anyways.
Share a story where you had to overcome a fear.
I was standing in a tourist guide office in Baños, Ecuador looking at smiling tourist repelling down waterfalls, swinging off the edge of a high mountain, climbing up thousands of stairs, zip lining over the massive Río Negro nearby on huge wall sized posters and thought, “All of this look scary so I don’t care which one we do.” My best friend is an adrenaline junkie and asked me what I wanted to do. I was tired from traveling for an entire day from the coast to get this city on the edge of the Amazon jungle so I said, “Whatever. It’s fine.” My best friend, Athena, had me translate over the details of various tours and finally we settled on rafting and repelling down waterfalls. I was so nervous because I don’t want to go down waterfalls but Athena was so excited and told me the safety on the ropes catches climber. Plus she had repelled before – it would be fine. Okay, still not feeling it but I was looking forward to how it would turn out. These pictures were blown up covering the entire wall of the store front and everyone was smiling so of course it would be SO MUCH FUN! Plus if anything happens I have my Ecuadorian ID and I speak Spanish so I could be able to tell the doctors & nurses what kind of care I needed if I fell off the mountain.
Unfortunately Athena & I enjoyed the nightlife till 3 am, and woke up at 7 am to get to the tour guide front by 8 am. I felt was exhausted. I was sitting there in my thoughts and Athena just kept looking at me with her suspect glances. I was nervous and hoping bad weather would happen. I kept checking my weather app thinking, “Omg, it is going to be raining all day! Wonder if the tour gets cancelled?” No, it would be fine. Eventually another girl showed up with to go with us & since it was such a small group the tour guide drove us in a car.
I sat in the back seat with the girl and found out she was from Baños and had never been repelling either but was completely not a nervous wreck. Now this city has waterfalls everywhere, it is so utterly beautiful just walking through – it looks like a magical village with relaxing spas, tour guides and artisan shops near the center where the church was located. I decided to go last so I could see how everyone else was going down. Even before we went down the mountain we put on our wet suits and had a quick instruction on how to use the equipment. Then we climbed up the mountain and I started feeling sick. I was disappointed that I had little sleep the night before and started looking down with cause my head to hurt more.
“I can’t believe I am doing this.” I started thinking about how I would simple just be able to climb back down if it looked scary. Then 30 minutes later we were at the first waterfall and I realized, “I can not go back down by foot. It was too steep.” I watch both my team go down with no real issues. I just looked into the jungle, watched the sun dance around the vines and lush leaves. I felt so nervous I could not stop shaking. I thought about how the guide was going to get me down unless I tried. There was nothing I could to get of going down this waterfall. I did not want to miss out on repelling down a waterfall in the jungle!
I used to think that being fearless meant one goes to towards all challenges with absolutely no fear. I remember that feeling of scared turned into have to. I have to just step towards the guide and shake hard. The guide looked at me & asked if I was ok then told me he had me. I had to put one foot after the other. I was going to be ok but looking down was overwhelming nauseating. My body has never shake so hard in my life. I just kept going down with my eyes closed listening to the guide yell for me to lean back and feed my guides through my harness.
I knew the entire time I was would be ok, but knowing that did not stop me from worrying and being nervous. What had me move forward was knowing that I did not want to go back alone and that I would miss out on the experience. After going down the first waterfall, I want to say the next 6 were easy but it was still rough – but after that I have such an awesome story to tell.
Athena told me as we rode back into Baños as the sun shined, “Now you know you can do it!”
Whose fearlessness do you admire and why?
My mom’s fearlessness. She has always been able to move forward despite having been told by countless people she could not be a business owner, that her accent was too strong, that she did not have what it took. I remember just thinking, “Why won’t she quit?” Later she told me she did not want me to ever think I could quit because something was hard. I always have admired how she seemed so unbreakable. I still think she is going out live everyone.
What song makes you feel fearless?
Drum & bass tracks always does it for me. I have been listening to Inner City Life recently as the singer, Diane Charlemagne, recently passed away, and it just one of my most favorite songs ever.
To follow Ally’s fearless journey, check her out via the following links:
Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest | Bloglovin | YouTube | Tumblr | Periscope
Don’t forget to check back every Friday to hear more inspirational and fearless stories. For more Fearless Friday posts, click here. Want to be featured? Fill out this form: http://goo.gl/forms/J3MeLdbRR0
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