How I Conquered My Fear and Took Back Control
Fear has a sneaky way of making simple things feel huge.
A train platform. A packed carriage. A set of stairs leading down into the London Underground. To someone else, it might just look like getting from one place to another. To me, in that moment, it felt like my body was shouting, “Nope, absolutely not.”
This week, I’ve been thinking about the little fears that hold us back. The ones that don’t always look dramatic from the outside, but quietly stop us from making changes, going somewhere new, saying yes to things, or trusting ourselves.
For me, one of those fears showed up strongly during a break in London.
I wanted to enjoy it. I wanted to explore, walk around, see things, eat nice food, and have that lovely feeling of being away from normal life for a while. But London also meant crowds. It meant public transport. It meant the Tube.
And the Tube, for me, was the big one.
The fear started before I even got on the Tube
What’s strange about fear is that it can begin before anything has actually happened.
I wasn’t stuck underground. I wasn’t lost. Nothing bad had happened. But my mind had already started playing through all the things that could go wrong.
What if it’s too crowded?
What if I can’t get off?
What if I panic and everyone sees?
What if I get confused and end up on the wrong line?
What if I can’t cope?
That’s how fear works sometimes. It doesn’t wait for proof. It just arrives with a full list of reasons why you should turn around and avoid the whole thing.
As I stood there, trying to work out where I needed to go, I could feel the panic rising. My chest felt tight. My thoughts sped up. Every sound seemed louder. People were moving quickly around me, and I felt like I was the only one who didn’t know what they were doing.
There’s a particular kind of loneliness that comes with feeling panicked in a crowd. You’re surrounded by people, but you feel completely on your own.
And honestly, part of me wanted to leave. I wanted to take the easy option. I wanted to tell myself, “It’s fine, I don’t need to do this. I’ll just stay where I feel safe.”
But I also knew something else...........If I let the fear make the decision for me, it would get bigger.
I didn’t wait for the fear to disappear
One thing I’ve learnt is that confidence doesn’t always come before the thing.
Sometimes we do the thing while our hands are shaking. Sometimes we move forward while our stomach is flipping. Sometimes we take the first step and let confidence catch up later.
That’s what happened in London.
I didn’t suddenly become fearless. There wasn’t a magical moment where I thought, “I’m completely fine now.” The fear was still there. But I decided I didn’t have to obey it.
That was the shift.
The fear could come with me, but it wasn’t allowed to be in charge.
I took a breath. Then another. Not in a dramatic way. Just enough to remind my body that I was safe in that moment.
I slowed myself down.
When panic hits, everything in you wants to rush. Rush to fix it. Rush to get away. Rush to look like you’re coping. But rushing usually makes it worse. So I gave myself permission to take a moment.
I didn’t need to master London transport in one go. I only needed to do the next small thing.
Find the line.
Check the direction.
Walk down the stairs.
Stand on the platform.
Get on the train.
Get off at the right stop.
That was it. One bit at a time.
Breathwork gave me something steady to hold onto
When my mind felt messy, my breathing gave me one steady place to return to.
I focused on breathing in slowly and breathing out longer. I didn’t count perfectly. I didn’t try to do it in a special way. I just made the out breath slower, because that helped me feel less swept away.
It was simple:
Breathe in gently
Let the shoulders drop
Breathe out slowly
Unclench the jaw
Feel the feet on the ground
That was enough.
Breathwork can sound like such a small thing when fear feels so big. I get that. If someone had said to me, “Just breathe,” when I was already panicking, I probably wouldn’t have found it very helpful.
But this wasn’t about pretending everything was fine. It was about giving my body a signal that I wasn’t in danger right here, right now.
I used my breath like an anchor. Every time my thoughts ran ahead into “what if,” I brought myself back to “I am here.”
Here on the platform.
Here with my bag.
Here with people around me.
Here, breathing.
That didn’t make the fear vanish, but it made it softer. It gave me a tiny bit of space between the fear and my next choice.
And sometimes that tiny bit of space is all we need.
Saying the fear out loud took away some of its power
Another thing that helped was speaking the fear out loud.
Not loudly. Not to the whole carriage. Just quietly, under my breath, or to the person I was with.
“I’m feeling scared.”
“I’m worried I’m going to panic.”
“This feels like a lot for me.”
There was something powerful about naming it. When fear stays locked inside, it can grow arms and legs. It becomes this massive, shadowy thing. But when I said it out loud, it became more real and less mysterious.
It was no longer, “Something terrible is happening.”, It became, “I’m feeling fear.” and that’s different.
Saying it out loud also stopped me from feeling like I had to hide. So much energy goes into trying to appear fine when you’re not. Smiling, acting normal, pretending you’re relaxed. It’s exhausting.
The moment I admitted it, I stopped fighting myself.
That mattered.
I didn’t need to be embarrassed about being scared. I didn’t need to judge myself. I could just say, “This is what’s happening for me right now,” and then keep going.
There’s no shame in having fear. The problem starts when we let shame join in and make it heavier.
The see, hear, smell technique brought me back to the moment
When I felt myself drifting into panic, I used a simple mindful practice. I call it the see, hear, smell technique.
It’s exactly what it sounds like.
I looked for things I could see....The tiles on the wall. The colour of someone’s coat. The edge of the platform. A sign telling me which way to go. My own shoes on the ground.
Then I listened for what I could hear.....The train arriving. Footsteps. An announcement. A suitcase wheel rolling past. People chatting nearby.
Then I noticed what I could smell.....Coffee from someone’s cup. Warm air from the station. Someone’s perfume. That underground train smell that’s hard to describe, but very London.
Doing this pulled me out of the scary story in my head and back into the real moment.
Because in the real moment, I was not trapped forever. I was not failing. I was not in danger just because I felt afraid.....I was standing in a station, breathing, noticing, and taking one step at a time.
The little fears can quietly shrink our lives
This Tube experience made me think about all the other fears that can hold us back.
Not always the huge fears. The quieter ones.
The fear of looking silly.
The fear of getting it wrong.
The fear of being judged.
The fear of changing your routine.
The fear of not knowing what to expect.
The fear of starting again.
These fears can seem small, but they can make our world smaller if we keep letting them decide for us.
We avoid the class we wanted to try.
We don’t book the trip.
We stay in the job that drains us.
We don’t start the conversation.
We don’t go to the event.
We tell ourselves, “Maybe another time,” when really we mean, “I’m scared.”
I don’t say that with judgement. I’ve done it too. Fear can be convincing. It can sound sensible. It can dress itself up as practicality.
Sometimes it says:
“You’re not ready yet”
“It’ll be too much”
“People will notice”
“You’ll regret it”
“Just stay where things feel familiar”
And yes, sometimes we do need rest. Sometimes we need to listen to our limits. Pushing through everything isn’t healthy either. But there’s a difference between looking after yourself and letting fear quietly make your choices.
That’s the line I noticed in London.
I could take care of myself and still move forward.
Taking back control doesn’t mean becoming fearless
The title of this blog is How I Conquered My Fear and Took Back Control, but I want to be honest about what “conquered” looked like for me.
It didn’t mean the fear disappeared.
It didn’t mean I loved every second of the Tube.
It didn’t mean I suddenly became someone who breezes through packed places without a second thought.
It meant I stopped handing fear the steering wheel.
The fear was still sitting beside me, making comments, trying to warn me, trying to pull me back. But I was the one choosing the direction.
That’s what taking back control looked like.
It looked like breathing slowly on a platform.
It looked like saying, “I’m scared,” and not making that mean I had failed.
It looked like noticing the sounds around me instead of spiralling into the “what ifs.”
It looked like getting on the train anyway.
And then, beautifully, it looked like enjoying my break.
Because I did.
Once I stopped spending all my energy fighting the fear, I had more room for the good bits. The walking. The food. The sights. The little moments that make a break feel like a break.
Fear didn’t get to steal all of it.
What helped me in that moment
If I had to pull the experience into a few gentle reminders, they would be these.
Name what’s happening
Saying “I’m feeling scared” can calm the noise in your head. It turns the fear into something you can respond to, rather than something that swallows the whole moment.
Come back to your breath
You don’t need a perfect method. Just slow down enough to notice the breath coming in and going out.
Use your senses
Look for what you can see. Listen for what you can hear. Notice what you can smell. It brings you back to where you actually are.
Break the task down
Don’t deal with the whole mountain. Deal with the next step. Then the next one.
Let the fear be there without giving it control
You don’t have to wait until you feel brave. You can act while fear is present.
The win was bigger than one Tube journey
On paper, it was just public transport. I got on the Tube. I got off the Tube. I found my way around London.
But inside, it felt much bigger than that.
It reminded me that I can feel fear and still cope. I can feel panic rising and still bring myself back. I can be uncomfortable and still be safe. I can do hard things in small steps.
That kind of win stays with you.
Because the next time fear shows up, you have evidence. You can say, “I’ve felt this before. I got through it before. I know what helps.”
That doesn’t mean it’ll always be easy. It just means fear doesn’t get the final word every time.
If there’s a small fear holding you back from something new, maybe the aim isn’t to crush it or pretend it isn’t there. Maybe the aim is to notice it, speak it, breathe through it, and take one small step with it beside you.
That’s what I did in London.
The fear came along for the ride, but this time, I was the one in control.
Karen xx
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