today I went surfing.
It was the first time since my accident almost a year ago, which is a big moment for me.
Since then, I've been doing a lot of work around fear, really getting to know it. Taking the time to understand how it works, too. I've learned that fear isn't something I need to carry around with me. I’ve also learned that it spreads super easily from person to person. And that the most important thing is figuring out where it actually comes from, then slowly working backwards from there. It’s a bit like reverse engineering an energy that has somehow been passed down to you, and yeah… that can absolutely feel very intimidating. The good news is, you don't have to tackle everything at once. That can be overwhelming if you're not used to making big changes. Taking it step by step definitely works a little better.
The fear has shown up in ways I didn't expect. Maybe you know that feeling of flowing through a yoga sequence without thinking, or being fully present playing with your kids, or just walking into a room and feeling completely comfortable in your own skin. There's no hesitation, no second-guessing. Your body and mind are simply just aligned.
Before my surfing accident, I had that same flow with bouldering in Joshua Tree. I would just leap, instinctively knowing where to grab. But a few months ago I started noticing the disruption. Now I'll stand there looking up at a route, knowing the next move is a leap, and I hesitate. The same thing happened in Revelstoke in Canada, even though I’ve been skiing and boarding since I was a child. I was flying down this stunning mountain but being so cautious that I lost all the flow I once had on a snowboard. It limited my whole experience and felt entirely disruptive. Almost like it becomes more dangerous when you're overthinking instead of trusting your body.
That instinct is still in me, but now there's this layer of hesitation that wasn't there before. It's like having to think my way back to something that used to be automatic. Each time I catch myself overthinking a move I would have made without question before the accident, I learn something new about how fear works and where it's coming from. It's part of that step-by-step process of working backwards to the root. I know eventually I'll fully find my way back to that place where my body just knows what to do.
just before writing this...
I was skating down the boardwalk here in San Diego, looking out at the waves where I got injured last year, and I caught myself smiling, thinking “I surfed this morning.” For the first time since my accident. And that's a pretty damn cool thing to reflect on and smile about.
That reflection blossomed into me writing about my own crippling experience with fear. Using this as another opportunity to grow. To dig even deeper into the patterns I've been noticing. I've realized that the more we try to pretend fear isn't there, the more it builds up and latches on. It becomes this energy we carry around without even knowing where it came from.
While I was moving through all of this — emotionally, physically, creatively — I made a painting called Untethered. You’ll see it plastered all over this article. An astronaut mid-ride, suspended in the chaos and beauty of the wave. It came straight from the part of me that needed healing. If it speaks to something in you, you can order a print on my Etsy shop and use code JUSTGOFORIT for 20 percent off this month.
let me take you back to where it all started.
The accident happened nearly a year ago. I was surfing alone on a new short board and a wave had its way with me. It tossed me, and tossed me just perfectly on top of my surfboard in a super creative, fun way. My right leg stopped working and I couldn’t feel it at all. It felt like how I had felt hundreds (maybe thousands?) of times when I’d fallen on the concrete skateboarding… a thud, ouch, but I’ll recover. Just feel the pain, Johnny, it’s temporary. But when I looked down, I saw that the nose of my board had impaled me straight into the thigh. Turns out, the bottom of the board had hit the ocean floor and was standing straight as it could, so perhaps you can imagine stepping directly on an upright sharpened pencil to get the picture. That toss left a deep wound, like a red canyon that poured its blood into the ocean.
Oh. Shit.
Get out, Johnny.
It was that simple. And somehow, my body did it. I don’t know how. I still don’t. It felt like my body went into God-mode and just did whatever it could to survive. I somehow managed to get myself to shore and hobble the long stretch to the lifeguard station about 8 minutes away. It felt like a lifetime. One guy asked if I was alright, and I muttered that I needed help. He pointed at his daughter and literally turned his entire body away from me, shrugging his shoulders and putting his palms up to the sky. Another group of bros shouted and laughingly said something about stingrays. Meanwhile, my leg was a fountain of blood spewing through my torn wetsuit and my right foot was dark red covered with blood-stained sand.
But the San Diego lifeguard—Junior was his name—was incredible. So calm. He called the ambulance, helped me out of my wetsuit (they’re too expensive to cut), and got pressure on the wound. I ultimately said no to the ambulance after they arrived because our system is so backwards that my first thought was, can I even afford this? Does my insurance cover it?
Nah… let’s not risk that.
Luckily I live just a few blocks away, and Junior loaded me and my board into the lifeguard truck and brought me home. I called my partner, Marisa (thank you, love), and she dropped everything to meet me. She got me to the ER about 20 minutes away, and they took me right in. Thirteen stitches. Blue ones. I’ll never forget watching her watch me, as they closed the cavity. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. I’ve felt pain before. My appendix exploding inside my body as a kid, and being rushed to the hospital, I thought that was the worst so far. Nope… this one took the cake. I still get nerve shocks sometimes.
So what’s the root of the fear that took over my life after that? The one that kept me from the joy of surfing again? The one that found it’s way into all of the things that I loved so dearly and inhibited my freedom and happiness.
Here it is:
That I might die.
Got it. Okay, soooo… what happens if I do die?
After really digging. And I mean really, really digging, here’s what I came up with:
I ultimately lose out on being in this body.
And what happens without this body of ours, Johnny?
Well, I lose out on being able to surf at all.
Or skateboard ever again.
I wouldn’t be able to cook dinner for my partner.
To make music.
To put a record on.
To see my family.
To create anything.
Or to make a terribly punny joke.
To slice open a tomato, let it hit my tongue, close my eyes, and taste the ancient sunlight it soaked in.
And, I wouldn’t be able to forget just so I can remember again.
why do we care what others think of us?
The root of this fear of death was debilitating at times. Even though I kept a straight face, I was intimidated and scared. But I dug anyway. I kept going.
I went to many, many life changing ceremonies and meditation retreats. Eight, actually—all within just a few months. This fear was controlling my life, and I couldn’t sit around and let it keep doing that. I needed to understand. I needed to understand in order to release it.
I’m driven as hell, and I’ll always try to get to the root of the thing so I can let it go. That’s the best part of living this life in this human body. It’s to unlearn, and then share that unlearning with others, so that we can all be just a little better off. So we can be more free from the weight and tightness and suffering we carry that was never ours to begin with.
During those ceremonies in just a few months, I learned that fear spreads like wildfire. It’s just so damn dangerous. I was shown that fear simply isn’t ours. And that it never was. It gets passed down. It can be projected, absorbed, inherited, and if we’re not paying attention, it becomes a story we live inside our entire lives without even realizing it.
And when fear piles up and hits all at once, it can feel like actual death when we approach it.
Or it can feel like you’re going crazy.
That’s another fear I’ve had to face. That the more I unlearn the programming that was passed down to me, the more I remember and uncover who I am. But the more that I recognize my true potential, and the more powerful I feel… the more I start to wonder if I’m actually losing my mind.
Like I’m seeing too much.
Feeling too much.
Trusting too much.
That I’m doing life wrong.
That I’m not grounded.
That I’m crazy.
But that’s not the truth. That’s the old fear voice, just wearing a new stinky mask.
So what’s the root of the very thing that says I’ll go crazy if I become 100% myself?
Because I’ve been here with the surfing accident, I knew that the real fear isn’t that I’d go nuts.
Upon digging a bit deeper, here’s what comes up:
It’s the fear that other people will think I am nuts.
Because when I was a kid and someone made fun of me for being my truest self… when someone I loved called me out for being “too much”… when my art teacher told me I’d never be an artist, or an architecture professor told me to try out a different path, that I’d never be good enough… I didn’t know how to separate what was theirs from what was mine.
So I absorbed all of that. I let it sink deep and without realizing it, I started making decisions from that place of fear. I even got really good at spite as a motivator. Someone would doubt me and I'd think, "Oh yeah? Fuck you. Watch this." It fueled my drive, which felt powerful, but I was still operating from the same wounded place. I was just disguising fear as determination.
why not just go for it?
The thing is, that core fear, the one that keeps trying to shrink me back into someone I'm not and hold me down? That one shape-shifts. It doesn't always show up the same way.
Sometimes it’s the fear of dying.
Sometimes it’s the fear of being seen.
The surfing accident showed me how close I could get to losing everything. My body. My life. The things I love. That fear was rooted in death.
But the fear that crept in later, the one that made me doubt my voice, question my gifts, and hesitate to show the real me, that one was different. That one was about being too much. Too sensitive. Too wild. Too free. That one was rooted in shame. And it had been there since I was a little boy.
Shame is quiet and sticky. It wraps around our sense of self until we start to believe that our light is a liability. That if we fully show up, we’ll be rejected and cast out from the tribe.
So we protect. We shrink. We play small.
But underneath both is the same question.
Am I safe to be fully here?
Because whether I’m paddling into a wave, or dancing in a ceremony, or crying on the floor of my living room, or drawing something no one may ever see, every part of me just wants to live. Fully. Honestly. Unapologetically. With my whole heart in it.
And that’s the risk.
The real risk isn’t dying.
The real risk is holding back.
And deep down, I knew eventually I’d get back into the water. Thankfully, today was the day.
So if I let fear win, and I don’t get back in the water,
if I don’t free up my spirit by moving through it,
if I don’t stick that skate trick, or jump off that cliff on my snowboard, or dive head first into the springs with my friends, or reach out to that dream client of mine, or make that song, or write this story…
Was I ever really living?
If I'm letting fear take over and run my life, letting it trip me up on the things that I love to do most, the very things that make me feel full, awake, creative, connected, alive, then am I actually living?
What’s the point of living afraid of death, if that fear keeps me from actually being alive?
What’s the point of shrinking to fit in, if it means cutting off the very parts of me that make life worth living?
Why not just go for it?
"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do." -Eleanor Roosevelt.
With all the love,
Johnny
Oh, and if you're interested in buying my piece "Untethered," the one that I painted while I was physically and mentally healing, it'd mean the world to me! Check it out here.
