What is the worst thing you can imagine happening to you? Death, either your own or that of a loved one? Sickness? Poverty? Abuse? Abandonment? Unemployment? Homelessness? I’ve lived through all of those at some stage in my life. And, yet, here I am approaching 60 years old and still here talking to you.

The saying “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” is untrue. The only people who say that have never lived through real trauma a day in their life. Trauma leaves us traumatised, nothing else. Only with time, and having reached a better place in our lives, can we sift through the ashes and take away small particles of warmth from the embers of the fire in an attempt to make it all make sense.

These kinds of traumatic events change us forever and they do so in one of two ways: either we shrink or we expand. We become less of who we originally were, or we become more. We live in darkness or we reach for the light. We say “no” to life or we say “yes, yes, yes!”.

I’ve been trying to get back into my creative photography recently and I’m struggling. Nothing I’m doing is working and I’m frustrated and fed up. It feels like a slog, not fun, and I wonder where the passion I used to feel for my art has gone. Then I came to a realisation: I’m not working from a place of joy, I’m working from a place of fear. What if I’ve forgotten how to create? What if I make a mistake? What if everyone else is better than me? What if I never make another good picture in my entire life?!

And so I ask myself the question: “OK, what if?” The worst thing that can happen is that I stop doing photography, eventually get bored and take up a different hobby from which I find new joy and passion. It’s hardly the end of the world. I need to simply relax, let go of the outcome and embrace the process.

Despite all the trauma I’ve lived through in my life I refuse to let myself shrink. Instead, I’ve expanded in ways I never thought possible. A former boyfriend of mine once told me that I rugby tackle each day to the ground and he’s right – although I risk being bruised in the scrum it’s better than being a passive spectator watching other people play and being too scared to join in.

I’ve faced the possibility of my own death on two occasions. The fragility of life is tangible to me and when faced with the inevitable End I want to have no regrets. I don’t want to wonder “what if?” What if I’d accepted that job, even though the timing wasn’t quite right? What if I’d approached that Gallery, even though I thought they’d reject my work? What if I’d dared to love greatly, even if I risked being hurt? What if I’d allowed myself to be vulnerable, even if it scared me to death? What if I’d moved to that new area, even if it wasn’t quite where I thought I’d end up? We always think there’s plenty of time to reach our goals and live the life we’d always dreamed of, but the truth is Time is finite and we never know if today could be our last.

To live in fear is to remain in the familiarity of the darkness, wondering what the warmth of sunlight feels like on our skin but never actually knowing. That’s existing not living.

What would happen if you lived without fear?