What's scarier than approaching a bush full of lions?

Stories guide us all our lives. There are nursery rhymes, fairy tales, religious stories, anecdotes, gossip, books and movies. It's one thing to read that fear is all in our minds and that we have the power to control it. It's quite another to somehow pull yourself out of fear when you're in the middle of it. Sometimes the right story at the right time can do the trick. But if you have never experienced such a truth for yourself, when you're weak there will probably be doubt about your strength to replace fear with faith.


Now none of this was on my mind when I went on a safari last December. All I wanted was to see lions, leopards and elephants in the wild. I wanted to spend a few days marveling at nature's abundance. And I wanted to do something which has been on my bucket list 18 years before I even created it. What happened was that not only did I see all the animals I had wanted to see. I returned with images and sensations which will be turned into poetry one day and with a few stories which I treasure for their power of persuasion.

If someone had told me that I would get out of a van and approach a bush full of lions with nothing but an armed ranger in front of me I would have thought that to be quite unlikely. If told that I would do all this without feeling even a little scared I would have thought it to be impossible. Yet that is what happened. All I felt was alert, extremely grateful for the opportunity for fulfilling this dream and full of love for these creatures.

How ridiculously relative fear is was demonstrated to me when on that very same day a frog dropped out of nowhere in front of my feet and I nearly jumped out of my skin yelling.

Yes obviously fear is all in the mind and now I believe it not only because so many people have said so but because I experienced it myself. One of the most precious gifts resulting from crossing off this bucket list item is that whenever I am afraid of something I can ask myself:
"Is this really scarier than approaching a pride of lions?" The heartening answer is "most likely not".