The following was written by Hillie Brumfield, an intern on our Engagement Team.

Some might say that taking time off from school, moving to an unfamiliar city, living in a house with strangers, and starting an internship you’ve never tried before classifies you as “fearless.” But for me, I became an Invisible Children intern because of fear. Since high school, I have suffered from anxiety, and my decision to intern stemmed from my determination to face my fears. In the past, I have had to leave countless jobs and opportunities because my anxiety would control my life and how I was living.

I’m a firm believer that fears are what you make them. They are visions and thoughts we let orchestrate our mind into a vulnerable place we don’t like to face. Our fears rattle us, shake us, bury us, and chain us. My fears cause me to fail. But not anymore. Not this time. As I started my new internship this fall, I told myself I wasn’t going to fail again, and I wasn’t going to quit.

Except I was wrong – because just a few days ago, that’s all I wanted to do. Just pack up and leave. These anxious feelings weren’t leaving. My fear of failure was becoming overpowering, and I just didn’t want to face it anymore.

jason training

And then I got the email. On Tuesday afternoon, I was sitting at my desk when I received notice that the interns would have one last training session with Jason Russell. In desperate need of some guidance and comfort, I was eager to see what Jason had prepared for us. Though I’ve always admired Jason and his work, there was nothing he said that I could have prepared for.

Jason proceeded to speak to the interns for an hour about what he called his “ABC’s of Life.” He told us:

A) be ALIVE. Seriously, when you wake up, do you realize that you are alive? That you are a living, breathing human on the planet earth? Because I sure wasn’t living my life in this truth.

B) BE yourself. This is something I wasn’t doing with my mind constantly in a blur of anxiety. Jason quoted Nelson Mandela: “As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” How true this is, and how wrong I was living.

C) CREATION. We need to start creating the kind of people we want to be right NOW. If – as Jason frequently says around the office – it takes 10,000 hours become an expert at something, we need to start right away dedicating our time and talents to the things that matter to us.

I want to master my craft. I want to help people, save people, meet people, love people, and learn from people. With his “ABC’s of Life,”  Jason helped reignite my spirit. He reopened my heart and reminded me to breathe. He reminded me why I am here – and that I was chosen to be here. As Jason said in the training:

“Fear is Finite. The opposite of infinite.”

Never let your fears hold you back. You are, where ever  you are, for a reason. Face that fact, embrace that reason, fight that fear.