The fear of failure is the most deeply triggering emotion I have experienced as an adult. As a mother, that fear mutates to the idea that every decision I make can create a wound for my daughters that will change how they perceive and approach the rest of their lives. The possibility that I can turn them into balls of rage that finish each day by assuming fetal position in a dark corner of their room while shutting the world out.

There is no situation in which this fear is more prevalent than those dreaded few days right before we depart on a new adventure. Right before we pack, right before we meet our friends for the last loving yet quivering exchange, right before the excitement when we realize that this is actually happening.

We’ve traveled full time for two years, and right before we migrate from one destination to the next, it is the same thing. It’s as if I blacked out to a night long binge session of feeding on jagged rocks that have lodged themselves in my lungs not leaving enough room for the last one that seems to be suctioned into my throat barely leaving enough air to pass through.

So, I hop back into bed, wrap my comforter around me as if I was the stuffing in a burrito, and just hold space for myself to digest. I allow my imagination to concoct every worst case scenario that could ever transpire, and just feel deeply into all of it, the fear, the anxiety, and the panic. Because I know that if any of those would to happen in real life, while it is just my daughters and I on the road, I would have no choice but to swallow the fear and be the hero, ignoring the deep emotions caused by the situation.

Being a woman, mother, entrepreneur, teacher, etc. usually requires me to be strong, calm and a problem solver. There is nothing more important to me than creating an extraordinary life for my daughters and teaching them the tools to do it themselves. But living a life full of uncertainty can be terrifying. It is terrifying. But the reward… so worth it!