How to Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway!

“My fear is at 49% and my courage is at 51%” says award-winning playwright, Bess Wohl. Plus, the advice she lives by, a dark and weird bravery hack, and her 7 favorite things…

Oct 24, 2025

Bess Wohl interviewed by Amelia Wilson for Happy on Purpose

The fear of other people’s judgment keeps many of us stuck, stopping us from pursuing long-held, precious dreams. The voices in our heads telling us our idea isn’t original or clever, or that everyone will laugh at us, can be paralyzing.

Bess Wohl, an award-winning playwright and filmmaker (she’s been nominated for a Tony!), knows this fear intimately, yet she’s found an inspiring way to feel it and go after her dreams. Her latest play, Liberation, will debut on Broadway next week, after delighting critics (and fans like Tina Fey and Gloria Steinem!) during its initial run.

Bess lives in Brooklyn with her husband and three children, and we chatted earlier this week about fear vs. courage, what she finally feels grown up enough to do, and the very personal story that inspired her to write Liberation.

Here’s Bess...

Bess Wohl and cast of Liberation stage play — Photo: Valerie Terranova

Feel the fear. My mom told me to “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” I’m not a person who easily puts myself out there. It doesn’t come naturally to me. It’s only through clawing my way through an enormous amount of fear and resistance that I get to that point. I’m proud that I’ve been able to push through fear to put my voice into the world.

How fear manifests. Fear is a shapeshifter. It’s voices in my head saying, “This is going to fail,” or “This is the worst idea.” But it manifests in other, unexpected ways. Sometimes it’s perfectionism, for example, “I can’t do this until it’s absolutely perfect.” Sometimes it manifests as depression, like, “Ugh, what’s the point?” Distraction can be another version, like, “Oh, I’ve got to go on Instagram for a little while.” Sometimes it’s tiredness: I feel this wave of exhaustion, but it’s really just fear.

Fear doesn’t always look like the obvious version of itself, but I’ve learned, as I’ve gotten more familiar with it, that if something is blocking forward energy—whether it’s tiredness, anxiety, or perfectionism—it all comes from the same place.

Courage vs. fear. One thing I love about courage is that without fear, there’s no such thing as courage. You’ve got to have one to have the other. For whatever reason, my fear is at 49% and my courage is at 51%.

Taking the plunge. Sometimes it feels like jumping off the diving board: I close my eyes and plug my nose. It’s extreme, and I have to really muscle it. But I do it because I know that the feeling of regret of not doing something, the discomfort of that feeling, would be greater than the discomfort of the fear.

A “dark and weird” bravery hack. If I’m worried a production is going to go badly or people aren’t going to like it, I look out over the audience, at the backs of everyone’s heads, and think to myself, “Everyone in this room is going to be dead in a hundred years! Whatever happens in this room, there’s going to be no living memory of it in a hundred years, so let’s just be together right now.” It’s dark and weird, but very liberating!

Three ruby rings available for purchase — **Rings L-R: Triple; Open; Solitaire**

1. Jewelry. A year and a half ago, I had a ruby ring made by an amazing jeweler, Jelena Behrend. I had never bought a piece of jewelry for myself before, and it felt like a mark of adulthood: I finally felt grown-up enough to make a piece of joy for myself instead of waiting for someone to give it to me.

2. Parenting tip. Listen more than you talk. It’s also the key to life. My father says, “If you talk, you know what you know. But if you listen, you know what you know and you know what they know.”

3 pairs of loafers available for purchase — **Loafers L-R: Snaffle; Bow; Classic**

3. Shoes. Life is too short not to wear good shoes. I’ve had a lot of nights ruined by uncomfortable shoes! There’s a line in Liberation about high heels being “modern foot-binding,” and it gets a laugh every time. My current favorites are a pair of eel-skin loafers because they look good dressed up, and I can walk all over New York in them!

4. Family tradition. We have “sushi shabbat” every Friday night!

5. Dream trip. I’ve never been to India, and I really want to go. All those fierce goddesses!

6. Book. I love poetry, especially the poems of Frank O’Hara, and great poetry anthologies.

7. Writing ritual. I take a lot of baths while I’m writing. I like my baths extra hot with Epsom salt, and if I’m feeling ambitious, a scented candle. The feeling of being submerged in water helps me think—it unlocks something in me.

Set in Ohio in 1970, Liberation is about six women, all strangers, who gather in the basement gym of their local community center to talk. But talking quickly becomes a necessary and bracingly funny attempt to change their own lives and the world. Fifty years later, the daughter of one of those women is shocked to find herself asking the very same questions her mother did…

Here’s Bess on what inspired her:

Liberation started with some very personal questions. My mom was part of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s. She worked at Ms. Magazine when I was young, and I always wondered about her choices around motherhood and career. I wanted to know whether she felt that having a family undercut her life as a writer and activist, and how it affected her politics, everything.
To put it bluntly, I wanted to know whether she regretted having children. As I got older and tried to balance motherhood with my career, I found the same questions cropping up. The play has helped me unpack all of that and taught me that many women, especially Gen X women like me, have asked themselves: “How does my mom really feel about the fact that she had me?”

Liberation has been described as gripping, hilarious, and deeply poignant, earning rave reviews in its initial off-Broadway run and winning the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play. It will be on Broadway in New York City from now through mid-January, and you can learn more about it and buy tickets here.

Thank you, Bess, you’re an inspiration! I’ll be thinking about the relationship between courage and fear, how we’re all going to be dead in one hundred years(!!), and the sneaky ways fear can manifest, for a long time…

I love Bess’ idea of buying jewelry—or something else—as a “piece of joy” for yourself. And, of course, I’m curious: have you ever bought yourself a special “just because” gift?