What If the Thing You Fear the Most Is the Thing That Saves You?

16 min read 🧑🏼‍🚀🤜🏾🤛🏾🪨

From outer space to inner reckoning: on fear, rejection, movement, and why the life you want may be waiting on your willingness to go.

---

Disclaimers: SPOILERS AHEAD! Proceed with caution! I am not a film critic, a therapist, or a professional of any kind—just a deeply moved creative sharing what this story developed in me. Nothing here is professional advice, just honest reflection. If you haven't seen Project Hail Mary yet, close this tab, go buy yourself a ticket, and come back when you're ready.

---

Writing Playlists:🎬✍🏾✨

A little gift before you read: The first cover is a personal cinematic playlist I curated myself—Echoes of the Films I Love—two tracks from each of the scores and soundtracks I love most, specially handpicked. If you're on Apple Music, turn on AutoMix and do not shuffle it on your first listen. Let it carry you the way it’s intended to. The other two scores were also played on repeat while the words found their way. 🎶✨

---

Why do we fear so much of what we do not know, and what is the true root of that fear?

Can you remember the exact moment you first experienced something that taught you to be afraid?

At what point in our lives does fear settle so deeply into our minds and subconscious that it begins to shape how we move through the world?

Our brains are naturally wired to react in what we call ‘fight-or-flight’ mode to keep us safe. That instinct is incredibly useful when our lives may actually be in danger—when we are driving and trying to avoid a collision, walking alone to our car after work through a dark parking lot, or hearing a loud pop and having to quickly register whether it was a firecracker or something far more serious. The brain’s ability to protect us is honestly impressive.

But if I can scale that danger back for a moment, I want to talk about a different kind of fear—the kind that shows up when we are faced with decisions that could move us forward in life, in our careers, in our relationships, and in the parts of ourselves we know are meant to grow. I’m talking about the kind of fear that is not always rooted in immediate danger, but rather in uncertainty. The type of fear that makes the unknown feel unsafe, convinces us to stay where we are, and turns comfort into a cage. That which keeps us stuck long after our moment to move has arrived.

---

The Ril Talk

So easily do we neglect and abandon not only our biggest and wildest dreams, but ourselves because of some level of fear. If I’m being honest, there have been certain points in my life where I’ve been guilty of exactly that kind of neglect.

For those of us who receive enough wake-up calls, enough opportunities, and enough life-shaping experiences to remind us that we are greater than our current selves, there comes a point where we have to learn how to come back home to ourselves—to the center—and trust in the core of our being that we are exactly who we think we are.

Ryland Grace, Project Hail Mary’s lead role, starring Ryan Gosling, just might be my twin flame, because what is really forcing me to stay here? What is really holding me back from moving forward in my life and career?

If I’m being real with you, in most cases, it’s the literal fear of the unknown.

I’ve been working on rebranding a major part of my business—my bridal services—and at the beginning of planning, I was scared to even think too deeply about how I wanted to present my ideas. This is so wild to me, because I’m already starting over in so many ways—clientele, positioning, structure—so what exactly was there to fear in starting fresh in this particular area? The thought of it all working out?!

Before I had to step away from my business a few years ago, I had bridal services available for booking, but I did not yet have a serious bridal system in place. See, there is a real difference between simply offering wedding makeup and building a business that is properly structured to serve brides well. I was just getting to the point where things were starting to become more organized. After taking over a year and a half away, I knew that whenever I returned—and my body was physically able to do the work—I wanted to rebuild my bridal services in a way that truly reflected what I imagined was best for me and my brides‎.

For a long time, I built my business from the outside in—using what I had learned from people I admired and experiences that shaped me. I was building from borrowed models before I had fully learned to listen to myself. Eventually, I realized I was trying to stretch myself across systems, standards, and structures that did not fully reflect the way I wanted to work. I was informed, yes, but not fully aligned, and once I recognized that, I couldn’t unsee it.

I originally started my rebrand with only myself in mind, and then one day I looked up and realized I was no longer building for just me. I had created something that now involves a team, a deeper need for alignment, and a greater responsibility. So that, in a nutshell, is what I have been doing these past few months: creating from purpose instead of imitation.

The work has not only been about new services, policies, and pricing, but also about confronting myself and taking inventory of the version of me that got me this far—and deciding what she can and cannot take with her. I’m not here to reinvent the wheel, but to take what already exists and make it honest to me. I’ve had to unlearn certain behaviors, loosen my grip on old ideologies, and release ways of moving that were rooted more in survival than true alignment. What carried me through ten years of business was real, and I honor that, but I would be doing myself a disservice if I kept trying to lead this next chapter with a mindset built for an older life.

If I am to be trusted with more—more vision, more responsibility, more people—then I have to rise to meet these demands as someone remade in purpose.

This form of becoming requires pure nerve and audacity!

---

Project Hail Mary

In a time where I can literally only imagine aliens coming to abduct me from this wretched planet, Project Hail Mary was, thrice, a quick escape that made me feel like I can be and do anything.

Project Hail Mary is about a man waking up in the unknown and realizing the mission in front of him is bigger, stranger, and more personal than he ever could’ve imagined. What starts as a space mystery turns into a story about fear, instinct, connection, and the kind of courage that only shows up when there’s no easy way out. The science is wild, the stakes are massive, and somehow the heart of it still feels intimate. It doesn’t hand you everything at once, and that is exactly what makes the ride so good—especially when the story is stitched together with some of the most incredible match cuts into flashbacks I’ve ever seen.

To me, the film reflects this season of my life a little too clearly—like looking at myself through some absurdly expensive telescope. It’s one of those stories that quietly reminds you that if you allow certain experiences, disappointments, or rejections to determine how far you believe you can go, there’s a very real chance you may never reach your highest potential.

So you got one no. Maybe you got two. Or maybe, unfortunately—but also maybe fortunately, and I’ll show you why later—you got twenty. That thing you want to do, accomplish, become, heal, lose, start, or finally say yes to, is still in fact waiting on you. The people who maximize their potential take all of their nos and use them as fuel for the fire of their yeses. But let’s be honest—rejection hurts, doesn’t it? In love, in work, in financial hardship, in the quiet disappointments we don’t always say out loud. We just can’t let our nos disable us.

And get this: we also cannot keep fighting back with our own nos. Sometimes there are forces and people outside of us that will push us forward even when we are stubborn, resistant, scared, and not ready to move on our own. Sometimes that push comes in ways we do not prefer. Someone like Eva Stratt, played by Sandra Hüller, may not package urgency in softness, but she still sees what is possible in someone before they fully see it in themselves. Then there are people like Officer Carl, played by Lionel Boyce, who recognize your power and helps you in actually harnessing it.

Images on left and right of gif captured on my iPhone 15 Pro Max on the big screen — IMAX 70MM @ Regal of Mall of Georgia

---

---

What Is Fear and What Happens When You Stop Worshipping Certainty?

Fear has a clinical definition—something about the brain registering threat and triggering a response designed to protect you: fight or flight, or survival mode. That version of fear makes complete sense, but the fear I’m talking about is different. It is the kind that was handed to you, likely conditioned into you when you were young by people who had also been conditioned before you—people who learned not to venture too far into the unknown because of what might happen if they did. This type of fear gets passed down like a family heirloom nobody asked for. The tricky part is that it rarely announces itself, as it can quietly form the ceilings that you believe you're allowed to reach or not.

So what actually happens when we let it win?

What happens when we decide that certainty is safer than possibility?

Nothing gets discovered. Nothing gets made. Nothing gets built. Nothing gets created.

Music, art, film, medicine, food, places, ideas—none of it exists without someone who was willing to move before they had all the answers. The things we love most in this world were born from somebody's willingness to be uncomfortable. Could you imagine a world with no undiscovered places, no untested ideas, no creative risks taken? I can’t! We would still be living inside the very first version of everything. The world as we know it—the beautiful, bizarre, overwhelming, inspiring version of it—only exists because enough people refused to let fear have the final word.

If you are in a season of transitioning or becoming, I want to invite you to do something that might feel strange at first: entertain the possibility that things could just work out for you. Maybe not perfectly, or without difficulty, but actually, genuinely, work out. That is not naivety. That is the discipline of believing bigger than your fear will allow.

Images captured on my iPhone 15 Pro Max on the big screen — IMAX 70MM @ Regal of Mall of Georgia

---

How To Overcome What May Be Crippling You

The most honest answer I have is also the simplest one: you have to move.

Fear hates motion. It thrives in stillness, in overthinking, in the gap between the idea and the first step. The longer you stay in that gap, the more comfortable fear gets and the more foreign your own potential starts to feel. So the first thing you have to do before a plan, before a vision board, before you tell a single person, is write it down.

That idea living in your head rent-free, the one you think about when you're driving, when you're in the shower, or when you're lying in bed trying to fall asleep. . . . .get it out of your head and onto paper. Not a note on your phone, not a voice memo, but an actual piece of paper—clean and fresh—because that choice is intentional. Starting on a blank page is an act of permission. You are telling yourself that this idea has room to grow, room to breathe, room to become something beyond what you can currently see. You are training your mind to stop hoarding your own vision. 

Grace does this a lot in the film, using whiteboards to translate overwhelming ideas into something he could actually test, solve, and act on. Once it is on paper, let it expand. Write messily, and incompletely. Let the page get full of scribbles and arrows and half-formed thoughts, because that chaos is actually the beginning of your clarity. From there, start with the biggest picture—your end goal, the fullest version of what you want—and work your way backward. What needs to happen right before the finish line? And before that? And before that? Order your steps as honestly as you can, knowing that everything will not go according to plan and that is not a reason to stop. That is just the nature of building something—anything worth having or achieving.

When you complete a step, even a small one, reward yourself in a way that is proportionate to what you just did. This is not for the need to be bribed into your own life, but because momentum is something you build on purpose. Motivation comes and goes while discipline stays. The reward is not the destination; it is the signal to your mind that progress is possible, that movement is real, and that you are someone who follows through.

I did not always know how to follow through on certain things just for myself. For example, what started as occasional trips to the movies slowly became something I realized I preferred doing alone—sitting in the dark, fully present, with nowhere else to be and no one else to tend to. I stopped waiting for the right person to enjoy the things I loved, and somewhere in that great shift I started taking it more seriously. I signed up for AMC A-List. I kept going back, and then I made a decision that felt small but wasn't: I started writing about my visits—publicly and honestly—because I had all of these feelings about film and life and what stories can do to a person, and I was done hoarding them. This blog is part of the momentum I have been creating for myself. This is what I mean when I say it does not always start with the biggest decision of your life. I had an idea that I wanted to write, connecting my real-life experiences to the ways I move through business, creativity, and becoming. Sometimes it starts with buying the ticket, followed by finally giving yourself permission to create around what you love.

The future really does need you to move.

It needs your yes!

I love collecting my digital tickets!

---

Sound and Image

This movie genuinely caught me off guard. I barely knew what to expect beyond the visuals, and I’m actually glad for that. I didn't know if it was going to be intense, eerie, funny, emotional, or all of the above—but going in without fully knowing left my mind open to receive exactly what the directors, actors, writers, producers, and crew wanted me to feel. Once I love a film, I always go back to watch the press runs, interviews, and behind-the-scenes because I need to understand what made it stay with me. I booked my second ticket the same day I saw it the first time, and my third just three days later. After this third watch, I really want to go see it again. It’s that good!

I am absolutely a sound girl, and I saw my first and third viewings in Dolby Cinema. The sound wraps around you in a way that feels so physical—seats vibrating, hearing movement on the screen in front of you, behind you, above you, things flying and rushing past—until the theater itself disappears. The colors feel richer here too, and for a film like this, I'm so glad that was my first experience of it. I love the way sound design can shape emotion before a character even says a word. It can warn you, comfort you, overwhelm you, or completely engulf you. My first ticket will always be Dolby. If I love a film the way I think I will, I'll go right back to see it in IMAX—because that immersion works almost entirely differently. It doesn't wrap around you, though it pulls you into the scale of things.

I still cannot fully find the words for the awe this film pulled out of me visually—because what I'm really reaching for is what it must actually feel like to witness space with your own bare eyes, the way a real astronaut might. The closest explanation I can give is like driving in a convertible at sunset through the hills of Agoura Hills and Calabasas in California with the top down, music blasting, the wind blowing your scalp at every turn—watching ridge after ridge peel back and give way to valleys so wide and golden they barely look like something that belongs to this world. Or that moment on a plane when you finally push through the last layer of clouds and all you can see in every direction is open sky, soft light, and a stillness so complete you start to wonder if this is what heaven feels like. So breathtakingly beautiful it almost feels unbearable. . . . .like if you looked too long or blinked too fast, it might disappear. Even those moments only get me halfway to the point I am trying to make. That is how far beyond the ordinary this film goes. It’s so expansive, and so overwhelming, but in an awesome way that perception starts to fail on purpose.

The score for this film is exactly what you would expect from Daniel Pemberton, and I mean that as the highest compliment. If you have ever listened to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (and hopefully Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse 🫠), The Bad Guys 1 & 2, or National Geographic's Welcome to Earth, you will recognize his signature music style before the first full minutes of the film plays. There is something so tactile about the way he builds sound. He has a rare gift for scoring worlds that feel vast and emotionally weightless all at once, and it is not limited to space. His National Geographic work proves that. He just has a way of making discovery feel beautiful rather than frightening.

My personal favorite detail from this score's creation is that a squeaky water pipe was recorded, transformed, and cleaned up to become the fragile, slightly unstable baseline woven throughout several of the pieces on the score. Yes. . . . .from a squeaky pipe. This is exactly why you have to believe that you can do anything. Nothing is too insignificant to become something extraordinary in the right hands. Fear would have left that pipe exactly where it was, but curiosity turned it into art.

A squeaky water pipe became this. 🚀🎶 
Daniel Pemberton, Dolby, Sony Music Scores, Milan Records

---

Review: AMAZE. AMAZE. AMAZE.

And to tie things back to the opening: Grace is able to achieve the greatest work of his life only once he moves beyond fear, beyond ego, and beyond his attachment to what he thought had to be true. He was literally forced to move beyond needing to be affirmed first, because the work still had to be done whether he felt ready or not. Sometimes the very thing that keeps denying you is also preparing you to meet your yeses differently. So much of our fear is rooted in the unknown, in uncertainty, in not having enough proof before we move, but even after doubt, dismissal, and consequence, discovery still requires somebody willing to keep going. That’s why two of the biggest questions this movie left me with are: what proof do you need before you trust what is in front of you, and what happens when you are the first person meant to see it clearly?

Bravery is ugly before it looks beautiful.

I give Project Hail Mary FIVE, 👎🏾👎🏾👎🏾👎🏾👎🏾🪨🤣 !!!

Ryan Gosling is the perfect person to carry the story of Ryland Grace—because he makes all that tension feel human—the fear, the doubt, the pressure, the reluctant courage. What makes him so watchable is that he never lets the weight of it become suffocating. His comedic timing is effortless, sneaking up on you right in the middle of a genuinely heavy moment. He makes Grace feel like a real person, not just a hero. What makes the film really soar is the unexpected dynamic between Grace and Rocky, voiced and performed so beautifully by James Ortiz. Rocky is not human, does not look human and does not even have a face—something we as humans heavily rely on when it comes to identity and recognition—and he does not communicate the way humans do. Yet somehow, the friendship that develops between them is one of the most natural and genuine connections I have seen on screen in a long time. There is no common language at first, no shared history, no reason either of them should trust the other, and watching them figure it out anyway is one of the most remarkable things to witness.

Both of them are, in their own way, throwing a ‘Hail Mary’, two beings from two different worlds, on the same seemingly impossible mission, trying to understand why their stars are dying and how to save all the lives depending on them. When you really think about the phrase ‘Hail Mary’, especially in relation football, it means a last-chance, high-risk play with low odds and a massive payoff if it works. That alone makes the title brilliant. What makes Grace and Rocky’s connection so unexpectedly moving is that what could have easily been written as something fearful, territorial, or dangerous becomes one of the most heartfelt and life-affirming friendships right before our eyes. There’s something so special about watching two complete strangers meet in the middle with curiosity, trust, and a shared will to keep going.

Adapted from the novel by Andy Weir, the emotional core of the script is strong and the filmmaking supports it every step of the way. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, along with cinematographer, Greig Fraser, make the film feel immersive, urgent, intimate, and strangely personal even at its biggest scale. The camera work really is out of this world—pun fully intended!

I already loved going to the movies before 2025, but after last year’s run of huge theatrical experiences, I learned to appreciate my moviegoing experience even more deeply. What Project Hail Mary reminded me is that you cannot fully arrive at the life meant for you if you keep giving up every time fear, rejection, or isolation shows up first. Grace’s journey is not just about his intelligence or his need for survival—it’s about continuing on when things do not look ideal, when the odds are low, and when belief in yourself has to come before any outside validation.

The world wants practical, but are you going to be the one who’s radical?

Alright y’all, I’m out! Fist my bump. 🤜🏾🤛🏾😏

My best friend gifted me with a Project Hail Mary Rocky Habitat Popcorn Bucket.

---

If you loved this one, keep reading:

Sinners — I crossed three states and sat in six different theaters trying to figure out why this movie wouldn't release me. Spoiler: it still hasn't.

F1: The Movie — Four movie visits to the same film because some stories don't finish telling you everything the first time around the track.

---

As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read! 🚀

Until next time,

Your Beauty Experience Coach,

Found this helpful? Don’t keep it to yourself—share it with your beauty pro friends or your community! Let’s keep the conversation going drop a comment below or slide into my DMs—I’d love to hear your thoughts! ♥️💭✨