Liz on her first skydive, 2025
Welcome Back!
This week, my daughter Liz Berendsen and I discuss how fear is completely subjective.
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Liz in London
Ready to face my date fears
Facing An Old Fear. Again.
During a recent visit to my kids in London, I did something I haven’t done in about eight years: I went on a date.
Here I am about to leave for the date — a visit to Richmond and walk through Richmond park.
Was I afraid? You bet! Did I persist anyway? I sure did. Why? Because I had nothing to lose.
Is All Fear Created Equal?
The catalyst for the Bodacious Tenacity podcast is my solo move to South Africa in 1996, but that’s just one example of doing something I was afraid to do. I’m afraid to do things all the time. Some of them are big (like moving across the world) and some are smaller (going to a couples dinner as the only single guest).
It’s all fear and there isn’t some universal bar or level of fear that makes it legitimate.
As it turns out, our brain processes social and physical threats through overlapping fear systems, which is why something as ordinary as going to dinner alone can feel as frightening as a major life change.
In his 2005 landmark study on fear, the late Swedish psychologist Arne Öhman found that the amygdala — the brain’s alarm system — is constantly scanning for danger. If it spots something that might be threatening, it grabs our attention automatically and instantly, even before we fully realize what we’re seeing.
That’s why some of us (ME!) jump at a snake-shaped stick (I’ve also been known to jump if a photo of a snake pops up on my screen) or feel nervous walking into a room full of strangers. Our brain is trying to protect us before our rational mind has weighed in.
Whether the danger is moving to another country, speaking in public, eating alone in a restaurant or seeing a snake, the brain first registers Potential threat. Pay attention.
Only afterward does the rational part of the brain decide whether the threat is truly dangerous. That’s why fears that seem small to other people can still feel completely real to you.
So the next time you’re tempted to berate yourself (or someone else) for feeling afraid over something that seems trivial, remember, to your brain, fear is fear.
My daughter Liz Berendsen and I recently chatted about how we each approach fear. Check out the clips below or on Instagram and TikTok.
The goal is not to stop feeling fear. The goal is to stop treating fear as proof that you shouldn’t act.
Guess what? Doing one scary thing does not permanently switch off the brain’s fear system. Your amygdala is designed to keep detecting potential threats because that is how humans survived.
Coming up on the Podcast
Corey Young shares his incredible story of becoming a quadriplegic in a surfing accident at the age of 20 and learning to persist through the fear of his new reality while overcoming numerous traumas, including an attack where someone tried to set him on fire in his wheelchair.
Miguel Olave reveals how he persisted through fear and quit his corporate job to manage a viral content creator (known as romeoshow on TikTok) eventually negotiating endorsements worth more than $1 million in less than a month.
Street Stories: In case you missed it…
Gareth’s teachers told him he wasn’t smart enough to attend university. He overcame his fear to apply — and got more than a degree.
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Special thanks to Kim Ledgerwood, Hannah Verdant, Laine Seaton and my kids for their support and hard work in making Bodacious Tenacity a reality.
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