Why the Scariest Things You Do Are the Most Important
By Jen — Liberty Photography & The Liberty Lounge
Nobody warns you about the specific kind of fear that arrives when you’re nearly finished with something.
Not the fear of starting. Not the fear of failing. But the fear of completing. Of actually seeing something through to the end. Of choosing yourself, repeatedly, even when every part of your nervous system is screaming at you to stop.
That’s the fear I want to talk about. Because I don’t think we talk about it enough — and I think it’s costing us everything.
The Enneagram, Creation, and the Bit Nobody Tells You About
Everything inside the Liberty Lounge is built on three pillars. Photography — because getting my creativity back was the first butterfly, the thing that changed my whole life. Human Design — because understanding my energy and finally working with it instead of against it was a lesson I couldn’t unlearn. And the Enneagram — not the personality test, but the esoteric enneagram. The Sufis called it the face of God. It’s an Eastern philosophy, a cycle of creation, and whether you know it or not, you’re already living it.
Here’s how the cycle works.
Points one to three: I am. This is where you form the vision, build the belief, become the person who can hold what you’re creating. It’s foundational work. It connects to the lower chakras — the root, the sacral — and it’s about grounding yourself in who you are.
Points three to six: I can. You build the thing. You actually, genuinely, painstakingly build it. This is the solar plexus territory — the seat of anxiety, action, and self-belief. The solar plexus doesn’t unlock with thinking. It unlocks with doing. With concrete evidence. With choosing yourself over and over until your body starts to believe what your mind is telling it.
Points six to nine: this is where you announce it, set it in motion, and let it land in the world.
Most people drop off at point three. It’s a shock point — a place where the vision collides with reality and a lot of people get derailed. Some make it to five or six. They build the thing. They announce it. And then — burnt out, depleted, completely conditioned by Western go-go-go culture — they convince themselves they need to start something new. So they do. And they never reach seven, eight, nine. They never set what they built into actual motion.
I’ve been here before. And what I’d completely forgotten — until recently — is how terrifying the six to nine stretch really is.
If You’re Not Scared, You’re Recreating
Here’s the thing about real creation. If you’re building from the known — from what you’ve done before, what feels safe, what your brain already has a reference for — you’re not creating. You’re recreating.
Real creation happens in the unknown. In the place where your brain has no map. And if you believe in the universe, in God, in something bigger than yourself — that is the only place where you can truly co-create with it. You can’t get there from the known. You can only get there from the unknown. And your brain, by design, will be afraid of that.
So the whole stretch feels scary. That’s not a problem to fix. That’s the signal that you’re doing it right.
Swimming with Manta Rays and What It Taught Me
I was in Bali recently and I swam with manta rays.
I was scared. Genuinely, properly scared — the kind of scared where you’re in the water and you genuinely wonder whether you’re going to make it back to the boat. The first time I got in wasn’t even a choice — I just went in before I had time to think.
But then we moved to the next spot. And the next. And Luke couldn’t get back in the water. And every single time, I chose to get back in. Scared. Still scared. Differently scared, because now I knew what was out there.
That’s the bit that mattered. Not the first time — that was almost accidental. The bravery was in the choosing. Repeatedly. In the full knowledge of what I was choosing.
The solar plexus — the anxiety centre, the one that keeps us stuck — doesn’t unblock through thinking about being brave. It unblocks through action. Through doing the scary thing and surviving it. Through your body accumulating evidence that you can.
The Scary Things Worth Doing
Now. I’m not here to tell you to bungee jump. I’m not suggesting you throw yourself out of a plane.
The scary things I mean are smaller than that. And often much harder.
Asking for help. For a lot of us, this is one of the most uncomfortable things we can do. It requires admitting we can’t do everything alone — which, if you grew up being the capable one, can feel like failure. It isn’t.
Accepting help when it’s offered. Even harder for some people than asking. Letting someone else carry something for you. Receiving without immediately reciprocating. Letting yourself be held.
Going for something you really want. The audition. The application. The conversation you’ve been putting off. The thing that matters so much it scares you. I had an audition recently. I was terrified. I did it anyway. That’s the work.
Having a Liberty shoot. I know — I’m biased. But I have watched hundreds of women arrive at shoots scared. Apologising before they’ve even said hello. Unsure whether they’re enough, interesting enough, photogenic enough. And I’ve watched something shift. Because a Liberty shoot asks you to be seen. To take up space. To let someone look at you properly and reflect back what they see. That is a deeply uncomfortable and deeply transformative thing to do. It’s not about the photos. It’s about what happens when you stop hiding.
Saying no. Setting a boundary. Holding it. Especially when you’re a people pleaser and every instinct says to fold.
Finishing something. Completing the thing. Sending it out into the world even though it’s not perfect and you’re not ready and you’re terrified of what people might think.
These are the scary things. The ones that unlock the solar plexus. The ones that move you from I am to I can — from belief in the abstract to belief with evidence.
Liberty Experiences — Scary in a Different Way
If a full Liberty shoot feels like too big a leap right now — that’s okay. That’s actually really useful information about where you are. And there are other ways in.
We’ve got a whole range of Liberty Experiences coming up, all priced at around £100, designed to get you out of your comfort zone in a slightly different way. Not a camera in your face. Just you, doing something that stretches you, with other women who are doing the same.
Paddleboarding. Getting on a board for the first time and not knowing whether you’re going to stay on it. Doing it anyway. Laughing when you fall in. Getting back on.
A waterfall walk in Wales. Out in wild landscape, moving your body, being somewhere beautiful and uncomfortable at the same time. There’s something about being in nature — really in it — that strips things back in a way not much else does.
These aren’t holidays. They’re not team building days. They’re opportunities to prove to yourself that you can do something that scares you a little. To get some of that solar plexus-unblocking evidence in your body. To come home slightly different to how you left.
And honestly? Sometimes the path to a Liberty shoot runs right through one of these first.
CHECK THEM OUT HERE
Choosing Yourself, Repeatedly
What I realised in Bali — in the water, and in all the small moments that followed — is that the brave act is rarely the first one.
It’s the second time you get in. And the third. After you already know how scary it is, and you choose it anyway.
It’s the self choosing itself. The self prioritising itself. The self advocating for itself — not once, in a big dramatic moment, but quietly, repeatedly, in the small choices that nobody else even notices.
That’s what builds unshakeable self-belief. Not the big leap. The accumulated evidence of every time you chose yourself anyway.
The lower chakras — the root, the sacral, and into the solar plexus — are all built on I am. But the solar plexus takes you to I can. And you don’t get there by thinking. You get there by doing.
So do the scary thing. Not the big flashy one necessarily. The quiet one. The one where you choose yourself when it would be easier not to.
And then do it again.
Jen is the founder of Liberty Photography and The Liberty Lounge — a community for women who are done waiting to feel ready. If any of this landed, you might also want to explore your Human Design chart — it’s free, and it’ll tell you a lot about the specific flavour of scared that’s most worth leaning into.
