Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Crimes to the Third Degree.

My stomach is in absolute knots tonight. I’ve decided to do something that terrifies me.

Flying By Night novel

Risk, risk, risk. I don’t know if I can do it. It’s such a simple thing, but I’ve put so much pressure on what I hope for that I physically cannot act. It’s been easier to live with not knowing the outcome than to take the risk.

It’s not that I haven’t done it before. I’ve done it before with stellar results…and with devastating results. I don’t see the outcome as being moderate in any definition of the word. This time, it will be an extreme.

It will either be wonderful or it will kill me.

The last time I took this particular risk, the results were good, and I wondered then why I hadn’t done it before because it was so wonderful to be in that space for that short period of time. It was so easy to be there. I wanted to be there all the time.

But I know the other side of it, too. I know how I’ll feel if I get my little heart crushed in the process.

I remember several years ago attending a seminar led by a life coach. She explained about how the “Terror Barrier” keeps us where we are, unable to move and take a risk that could put us in such a better position. She talked a lot about comfort zones and stretching out of them a little until you’re uncomfortable and how if you stretch out of your comfort zone until you’re in a place where you feel like you’re gonna die, then that’s the place to strive for, because that’s where the pay-offs are.

I wonder if she ever faced this particular situation.


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