Braver Than You Think
When purpose becomes stronger than pain
🌸 ikigai 生き甲斐 is a reason for being, your purpose in life - from the Japanese iki 生き meaning life and gai 甲斐 meaning worth 🌸
"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face... You must do the thing you think you cannot do." — Eleanor Roosevelt
The morning of my talk, I woke with swollen eyes and the hollowed-out and sick feeling that only comes after a whole day of sobbing. Just twenty-four hours earlier, something had shattered in my personal life, a harsh reminder I wasn’t safe. A wound that makes you question whether you can put one foot in front of the other, let alone speak coherently to ninety strangers about artificial intelligence.
I seriously considered backing out. My finger hovered over my phone, ready to call in sick. A kind friend had even offered to present in my place if I couldn't pull myself together. "No one would blame you," he said. And he was right, they wouldn't have. Something in me couldn't let go of the commitment I'd made.
Something else in me, the scrappy fighter hardly anyone sees because of my distaste of confrontation, wanted to be bloody brilliant as a fuck you.
Standing in the wings, watching the room fill for my talk, I took slow, deliberate breaths. Not to calm excitement, but to keep myself from crumbling. Ninety faces. Ninety people who needed something I could give them, even if I felt I had nothing left to give of myself.
I should have been an actor me, I’m getting FAR too good at masking.
For ages, I've written about finding your hatarakigai (work worth doing), at the intersection of what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. But there's something I don’t think I’ve explicitly called out, sometimes the path to purpose runs straight through pain.
Finding stillness in the storm
That morning, I'd sat with my bullet journal, not practicing or planning my talk but planning how to survive my talk. Breath work. Pressure points. Compartmentalisation techniques I'd learned over decades of managing emotions.
The impostor thoughts crept in predictably because I was feeling vulnerable "You can’t keep 90 people engaged for an hour" These thoughts have at times been familiar companions even before the personal crisis, but now they seemed amplified whispering that I should stay safely hidden rather than expose myself to judgment.
I turned to a simple technique that has saved me countless times; the 4-7-8 breath. Inhale for 4 counts, hold for 7, exhale for 8. This takes the edge off the feeling of physical panic, creating space for something unexpected to emerge.
What surprised me wasn't the techniques themselves, but the clarity that surfaced alongside them. With each controlled breath, my purpose came into sharper and sharper focus;
These people deserve not to be left behind by technology. I can help them, regardless of how *I* feel.
It wasn't so much pushing down my negative emotion, it was about finding that still point within the storm where both the pain and the purpose could coexist.
What many don't realise is that this isn't just psychological courage, it's neuroscience. When we shift our focus outward to helping others, we literally engage different neural pathways, creating capacity we didn't know we had. The brain's attention networks redirect, giving us a temporary respite from our own pain, not by ignoring it, but by placing it in a larger context.
The moment of transformation
A friendly face introduces me. I step onto the stage, still broken in ways the audience can't see.
Something unexpected happens. As I begin explaining how AI doesn’t have to be difficult to get started with, I feel the rawness of yesterday's pain... not disappear, but transform. It becomes a different kind of energy, a reminder of how precious it is to create meaning even when meaning seems lost.
I find myself looking directly into people's eyes, seeking connection, watching for the subtle nods of understanding, the small smiles of revelation. In those moments of genuine connection, the size of the room disappears. It becomes a series of one-to-one conversations held in a shared space.
I'm not performing confidence or faking engagement. The truth is, I care too deeply about these people, about ensuring they aren't talked down to, about giving them honest information without hype or fear - to let my personal pain or self doubt take centre stage.
When it came down to it, it wasn’t about being brave at all. I just cared more about them than about how I was feeling in that moment.
The sixty minutes pass in what feels like ten. Questions flow, connections form, and beautifully, I find genuine moments of joy breaking through the heaviness.
The ikigai revelation
Walking off stage, I genuinely realised something SO important. Our North Star of purpose doesn't require us to be unbroken or fearless. It simply requires us to remain orientated, even when the clouds seem impenetrable.
My personal pain and professional fears weren't obstacles to overcome before I could serve my purpose, they were the very landscape through which purpose carved its path.
This is what the hatarakigai journey doesn't always make obvious. Finding work worth doing doesn’t have to wait until you feel ready or whole. I’ve discovered that purpose itself can be the container strong enough to hold both your gifts and your wounds.
I won't pretend I walked off stage magically healed or fearless. But I *did* discover something valuable, the knowledge that purpose creates capacity we don't know we have until we need it.
The power of shared vulnerability
I shared some of my fears with a train the AI trainer group as I felt such relief afterwards, but not the polished social media version, the messier reality. I told them how scared I was but how good it felt to have done it, and to have done it well.
Many admitted they'd faced similar moments, standing at the threshold of opportunity, nearly turning back. Some have pushed through, some still waiting for their moment. I was thanked and told they felt relief at hearing someone else’s struggles too.
We're so accustomed to seeing only the highlight reels of others' lives that we forget everyone's story contains deleted scenes of doubt, fear, and times they nearly gave up. When we hide these parts, we unintentionally create a standard no human can actually live up to.
Each time I've faced a fear, it's become marginally easier and this latest lesson will be such a driving force for me. The fear doesn’t necessarily diminish but my trust in purpose as a guiding force grows stronger. Courage, like any muscle, develops through repeated stress and recovery.
What feared thing or painful circumstance might be waiting on your purpose path? What impossible-feeling step might actually be possible with a big enough why?
Sometimes the bravest thing is simply showing up broken and letting purpose work through you anyway. And sometimes, that's exactly where the transformation begins.
Sarah, seeking ikigai xxx
PS - For fellow travellers on difficult days, here's my emergency bullet journal spread:
Three breaths before each new thought
Focus outward: Who needs what I can give today? Who will benefit if I do this thing?
Permission to be imperfect while still being valuable << THIS, why wasn’t THIS obvious to me? If you have something to share to help people, it doesn’t have to have Hollywood production levels to be VALUABLE, it really doesn’t!
Small anchors: Feet on floor, water sip, friendly face in crowd
Remember: Purpose doesn't require perfection - trust your purpose, it guides you even through pain and uncertainty
PPS - Some journal prompts to consider;
When was the last time you found strength you didn't know you had because something mattered deeply to you?
What purpose in your life feels worth being uncomfortable for?
PPPS - Sometimes you need a song to help, Sara Bareilles and Brave does feel appropriate today precisely for those times you aren’t really feeling it but find a way to push through anyway.
💕💕💕
…wishing you strength…