Alison Byrd: Facing the shadow

    Fear is one of the scariest parts of life, but also one of the most necessary. Without facing fear, there is no growth. In class, when our professor shared his journey on the Appalachian Trail, he did not only talk about his highlights. He also opened up about the moments that were dark, uncertain, and even terrifying. That honestly made it clear: true transformation requires walking directly into what scares us.

    On the trail, he faced both physical and mental fears. There were long, exhausting stretches where the vastness of the path, reaching all the way to Canada, became mentally overwhelming. At the same time, physical challenges were constant: a sprained ankle in the snow, a near encounter with gunfire, and the harsh toll the trail took on his body. But the truth is, mental and physical fear are never entirely separate. Especially in long periods of solitude and self-reflection, the pain in your body starts to echo the struggle in your mind.

    What made this journey meaningful was not just reaching a destination, it was how he confronted everything unexpected along the way. The entire trail became a metaphor for facing the shadow: that darker part of ourselves we often try to avoid. Fear, in this context, was not something to run from. It was a teacher.

    Fear often feels like something that breaks us. It can make you question who you are or where you are going. But it can also show you what you are capable of enduring, and becoming. To face fear is to say that you will not let this define you and walk through it.

    This also ties into the idea of dreams. People often talk about dreams as goals or future careers. But maybe, at its core, a dream is just our way of not giving into fear that we will not become anything at all. Fear is like a shadow: always looming. You can not outrun it. But you can learn to walk beside it. Then once you accept that fear is a part of the journey, the shadow starts to lose its power.

    We can not erase our shadows. However, by facing them, by walking through them, we begin to change. That change is what makes the journey worth taking.