Fearless

So many of the women who have shared their stories with me (and which I'll share with you over the course of time) have had some element of fearlessness in them, whether it was facing the demons of loss, loneliness, disease, self-hatred, disillusionment; I'll end the list there before I get depressed just typing the words.

To be fearless, what a trick. We are born fearless and then little by little it gets squeezed out of us. Yes, I'm coming back to Girls on the Run for a second time. It's such a great organization I couldn't help myself. They recently ran an essay contest, asking the pre-teen girls participating in their program to write about what it meant to them to be fearless. Here's a small sampling of what some of the girls wrote. And a reminder that we faced many of the same fears as children, that we face as adults. Or perhaps I should say, we don't grow out of as many of our fears as we think. So what a boon if we can learn to be fearless early on.

Here goes:

"To me fearless is doing something others might not think is cool. Like standing up to the popular kid in school, or making friends with the new girl."

"[T]o stand up for myself and ignore gossip about people."

"No, I haven't slaughtered a dragon, captured a murderer, or even perfected a backflip...I opened up and shared my thoughts, without being afraid of being teased."

"I shouldn't be held back from standing out."

"Being true to who you are, is the best way to become fearless."

I couldn't have said it better.