Anxiety Is Just a Word

How I use experience as an antidote to fear

Kimberly Carter
8 min readJun 26, 2021
Photo by the author — Dark Corner, South Carolina

A lot of things frighten me, but no one really knows that because I spend a lot of time soldiering on with a tough exterior. I’m good at soldiering, but being a great, big liar doesn’t do much to help me grow as a person.

In an effort to get to know the limiting voices inside my head a little better, I decided to write down all the things I remember being scared about today.

I do this, mainly, as a reminder so that I can catalog these tiny surmounted hills and remember that even though I was scared, I did life anyway. I went out. I experienced the world and came back home to tell stories.

Experiential Learning — learning by doing — why don’t we do more to apply this, literally, to life? I spent so many years trapped in my brain prison, grasping onto the bars of a cell I had created entirely by my own fears. Then one day, I slipped my hand into my pocket and realized there was one key that would unlock the gate and it was in my possession.

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