“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the victory over it.” ~ Nelson Mandela
I first slept in a snow shelter at -20 ° C.
Second, I stand alone on a stage in Montreal and try to make strangers laugh.
Third, I took my thumb off the side of the highway with nothing but a backpack and hoped that a stranger would take me to a house 1,200 kilometers away.
I did all of this on purpose, as part of a project I called my year of fear. The idea is simple: face a new personal fear every month for a year, write honestly about it and see what happens on the other side.
What I did not plan for was the month when things went awry.
How it started
I am thirty-three years old and I am scared of almost everything.
Not in a practical way. From the outside, I look good – a successful engineer, a long-term relationship, an apartment in Montreal, a life that seems to go somewhere.
But underneath, I was carrying a backpack full of fear, I had never seen it in person. Fear of rejection. Fear of conflict. Afraid of my honest advice and people disagree. Fear of being alone. Fear of big changes. Fear of strangers.
And most – one color another – fear not enough.
I grew up with a lot of fear. It is not natural for me to go to something difficult. I was a kid who avoided confrontation, who changed his mind to match a room that kept himself small so no one had a reason to reject him.
At the age of thirty-three, I looked back on my life and realized that fear had made my decision for me for as long as I could remember. It diminished my agency, hindered my resilience, and limited the amount of life I was willing to live in silence.
So I decided to do something about it. One month at a time.
Years of fear
January: I rode snow boots into the icy Canadian wilderness in the middle of winter and built a snow shelter with my own hands and slept in it overnight. I did not get much sleep. But I woke up.
February: I perform a comedy at night, turning on the microphone in Montreal in front of a room full of strangers. Some of them laughed. Most of them did not. I survived.
March: I cycled 1,200 miles from Halifax to Montreal, trusting strangers with my safety for three days in a row. Everyone who brings me is kind.
April: I spent the whole weekend at a quiet meditation venue – no talking, no phone, no interruptions. Just me and my mind for forty-eight hours. That place is harder than a snow shelter.
May: I went diving, I stood on the edge of the canyon for what felt like long before I jumped. But I jumped.
In May, I could feel a change in me. Quiet confidence like never before. The growing feeling that I can do difficult things – that discomfort is not something to run away from, but something to walk towards.
I was building muscle that I did not know I needed.
And then June arrived.
Months things went down
In six weeks, three things happened that I had never seen before.
1. I was fired from a high-paying corporate job.
2. My grandmother died.
3. And my girlfriend is six years old and I broke up.
All. Six weeks.
If you had asked me a year ago how I would handle the loss of my income relationship and my favorite person on earth in one month, I would honestly tell you that is not good. I will tell you that I may be separated. It crawls into a hole. Wait for someone or something to settle.
But that is not what happened.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s cruel. I cried on the Montreal Metro, carrying everything I had on my friend’s chair. The first night away from home that I called home for years was one of the loneliest things in my life.
But I went through it more steadily than I ever thought possible.
And it took me a long time since then to try to understand why.
What Five Months of Facing Fear Are Made of
Here’s what I believe: The fear I deliberately faced in the first five months of this year created something in me that I could not create the other way around.
They build resilience – not an idea but a living experience. Each time I walked toward something that scared me and came out, I added another data point to the growing piece of evidence: I can do difficult things. Discomfort does not kill me. Fear is information, not a stop sign.
So when the unexpected fears arrived – the ones I never chose, the ones that just appeared and demanded to be addressed – I had the muscle for them. Not a perfect story. Not something that makes it painless. But enough of one to keep moving.
This. Breaking up is the hardest. Of the three losses, such as frequent breakage. When you have built a life with someone for six years, when you have woven your habits and your future and the feeling of your home around another person, losing a relationship is not just about losing someone. It loses your version.
And I think that’s what makes the breakup so scary.
It is not just loneliness. It’s an identity question under isolation: Who am I now?
Fear Under Fear
One of the reasons my relationship ended was something I had known for a long time, but was too scared to face in person: I wanted a baby and she did not.
I pushed that fact away for years. Not because I did not know it was there, but because I was scared. Fear of losing her. Fear of being alone. Fear starts at thirty-three without guaranteeing that the life I want is still there for me.
People enjoy being just scared to wear a mask. And I’ve been making people happy in that relationship — and in most of my relationships before that — for a long time.
When we broke up, I decided. I ended the fear of making my decision.
Since then, I have been in control of who I am. I wanted to have a baby, and at first I was very clear and without apology. I stopped softening my edges to be more acceptable. I stop changing my story to fit what others want to hear.
And when I meet new people and are rejected – which happens many times – I learn to edit it as useful information rather than proof that I am not good enough. If someone is not really interested in me, then they are not the right person. Simple. Clean. Nothing to take personally.
Denial stopped being a scary thing and started to become something to learn.
What lets go really looks like
In the years since the breakup, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to give up.
I knew that. Let go Not once. It is a continuous practice. I have to give up high expectations of others. Let go of the embarrassment surrounding professional failure. Abandon the need for closure from people who never give it to me. Give up the idea that I can control what is not mine to control.
It never ends. Leaving is a job.
But the common thing that comes through it is this: almost everything that hurts us is something we can not control. Termination of relationship. Lost a job. Someone we love dies. The only thing we can really control is how we respond to what happens to us.
Waiting for the shutdown – waiting for your ex to say the right thing so you can move on – is handing over control to someone who has already left. Real closure is not what others give you. It’s what you decide to give yourself.
I know it’s not easy to listen when you’re in the middle of it. I know because I’m in the middle of it. And it still takes me even after I know it intellectually to get the true feeling in my body.
But the moment I stop waiting for permission to move forward is when things start to change.
What I know now
I am now married to an incredible woman who truly loves me for who I am. I have two children that I have always wanted. A life I am truly grateful for every day
Nothing would happen if I let the fear continue to run that program. Nothing happens if I still have a relationship that does not follow what I want because I am too scared to be alone. Nothing happens if I keep waiting for the world to prepare in a way that I finally feel safe enough to be myself.
The breakup I have never seen is the most important thing I have ever had. Not because it’s easy. But because it forced me to stop running from fear and start learning from it.
Here’s what I want you to know if you are reading this in the middle of your own heartbreak:
You are not broken. You are not behind. You are not much or not enough.
You are a person who loves others with everything you have. And you are the one who will think about what comes next, not because it is easy, but because you are more resilient than you realize.
The fear you are feeling right now? It is not a sign that something is wrong with you.
It is a sign that you are paying attention.
And that is where the work begins.
About Eric Ibey
Eric is a Canadian-based professional breakdown rescue engineer and trainer. A decade ago he wrote honestly about his most difficult separation and was overwhelmed by responses from like-minded people. That experience led him to create The Breakup Challenge, a free 5-day email program to help people get started after a breakup. You can register at breakupchallenge.ca.
