An ordinary day. Or almost.
My mom had just left after spending a few days with me. You know, those sweet moments when you can finally let go a little. When you don’t have to pretend everything is fine. When the hugs still carry the scent of childhood home.
My boyfriend and I had just dropped her off at the airport. And suddenly, my fear of being alone was suddenly right there, in my throat.
I felt empty. Not just sad to say goodbye. But alone. Fragile. Worn out by too many bottled-up emotions.
At the time, I was in a long-distance relationship. That evening, he wanted me to come stay at his place. But the next morning, I had my Zumba class.
And yes, said like that, it might sound trivial. But for me, it wasn’t just a class.It was my tiny daily commitment. My resilience ritual. A moment to reconnect with my body, catch a breath of lightness, and sweat out some of the anxiety.
I tried to explain it to him. Calmly. That I needed it. That it mattered to me. Unfortunately, we didn’t understand each other. And there, on that airport bench, crying but strangely clear-headed, I said this sentence:
“I love you, but I have to love myself more.”
For the first time, I didn’t let my fear of being alone decide for me.
Not because I had stopped loving him. But because I no longer had any energy left to give without betraying myself a little more each day. And that evening, I made a choice. The choice to put myself back at the center of my own life.
What My Fear of Being Alone Taught Me
At that moment, I was at rock bottom.
No job.
A relationship ending.
And those damned panic attacks clinging to me like mental chewing gum.
But despite the chaos, I did something huge: I took care of myself. I chose to respect myself. To stop sacrificing what helped me heal—just to please someone else.
And you know what? That small gesture, which looked so insignificant on the outside, was actually the start of a whole new path.
What I didn’t know yet was that this moment—as dark and desperate as it felt—would turn out to be a turning point. A pivot.
A simple (but powerful) exercise to understand yourself better
Years later, I realized it during a simple exercise in my coaching training: I had already, back then, a spark of life force inside me. A capacity to fight for myself, even when I thought I couldn’t anymore.
Since then, I’ve shared this exercise with many of my clients. It looks simple, but it can deeply shift the way you see your journey. It’s called the life line.
Here’s how to do it:
On the left side, add a vertical axis—this represents your feelings: the higher an event is placed, the more positive it was; the lower, the more painful or difficult.
- Take a big sheet of paper, ideally A3, landscape orientation.
- Draw a long horizontal line across it—this represents time, from your birth until today.
Now, choose five domains of your life and draw a curve for each:
💼 Work
🧡 Love
🏠 Family
👥 Friendships
🌱 Spirituality / Inner well-being
Mark the key events—good and bad—and place them according to their emotional intensity. You can connect the dots to form curves, and use different colors for clarity.
What Your Life Line Reveals
When you’re done, take a step back and look at the whole picture.
- Do certain periods overlap?
- Were there times when everything seemed to go well at once?
- Or phases when it all collapsed together?
- Do you see patterns? Valleys followed by rises? Unexpected turning points?
Then ask yourself:
- What do these lines say about me?
- What helped me bounce back?
- Are there repetitions?
- Which resources show up again and again?
What I saw on my sheet moved me deeply. Because, in black and white (well, rainbow-colored in my case), I could clearly see that every fall was followed by a rise. Not always immediate. Not always spectacular. But real.
And that realization felt amazing.
What If the Fear of Being Alone Is a Signal, Not a Sentence?
And you? Has there ever been a moment in your life when you chose yourself, even if it was hard?
Or a moment when you wanted to, but didn’t quite dare yet?
