[Introducing CaliLily’s lifestyle blog series Not S*rry. CaliLily stands for women and all their choices by creating a space for women’s voices and potential to be heard in the cannabis industry and beyond. Our blog series, featuring perspectives from real women, highlights community, empowerment, vitality, and authenticity among women. This is an apology-free zone.]   

Real-Life Scares That Make Haunted Houses Look Tame 

With Halloween around the corner, it’s that time of year when spooky things take center stage—think haunted houses, creepy costumes, and horror movies. But let’s be honest: the scariest stuff isn’t the kind that jumps out at you from behind a door. It’s everyday life situations, whether that’s tricky business challenges, encounters in the wild, or just the ordinary push of the workday. 

In the spirit of Halloween, we asked three women from diverse backgrounds how they have dealt with daunting situations—whether it was an email lurking in their inbox, swimming with sharks, or years of hard work ending up in a crash.  

Surviving a Business Nightmare 

After building a cannabis company over many painstaking years, Annie Holman, co-founder and managing partner of Fusion Strategies, lost everything in a matter of months. She was defrauded by women she trusted. It was brutal. 

She says, “I lost my cannabis venture last year—a company that took me eight years to build. I was defrauded and lied to beyond measure and, most heartbreakingly, by women who I thought had my back. My emotions were all over the place. It felt like death, and the grieving cycle was the same.” 

For most of us, it’s hard to imagine going through something like that. The grief, the anger, the loss—it was all overwhelming. Annie found herself relying on cannabis to unwind at the end of those long, stressful days and gummies to help her sleep at night. And while it’s still a tough road, she’s figuring it out, one step at a time. Sometimes, fear isn’t about a single moment—it’s about the days and months after something awful happens and finding the strength to get back up, even when you’ve been knocked down hard. 

Staring Down a Shark (Literally) 

Imagine this: You’re underwater at night, on a scuba dive, and it’s so dark that the only thing you can see is what your flashlight hits. Already a bit unnerving, right? Now, imagine coming face-to-face with a shark. That’s precisely what happened to Tara Coomans, president of Avaans Media, a PR agency in Los Angeles, when she was on a night dive. 

She says, “I swam around a reef and came just about nose-to-nose with a shark. Now, this was a small black-tip reef shark, hardly ‘Jaws,’ but my body reacted as if it didn’t know the difference.” 

Tara did what most of us would probably do instinctively—she tried to scare the shark away by waving her flashlight. But instead of leaving, the shark got curious and moved closer. At that point, Tara’s fear took over, and her rapid breathing sent her toward the surface—a huge no-no in diving. But in the middle of that panic, her training kicked in. She corrected her ascent, stayed safe, and the shark swam off.  

“I finished the dive and had an amazing encounter with an octopus afterward,” she adds. Fear can surprise us and throw us off our center, but staying calm and relying on our training and past experiences can make all the difference. 

The Haunted Inbox 

You know that feeling when an email or Slack message just throws you off your game? For KW, a writer and social media consultant, that was a regular occurrence. The pressure to respond quickly, especially when something felt heavy or complicated, made her anxious. And reacting immediately? Yeah, that didn’t usually end well. 

She says: “My daunting situations usually happen over email or Slack. I used to react immediately, and the results were never good. So now, I wait a beat before reacting. I let myself feel the emotion, process it, and then reply or get started on the task or whatever is daunting to me. I’m becoming more successful at this.” Managing the demands of the 24-hour digital world is daunting, so taking a breather between requests is always a good idea. 

 If you’d like to share your story of empowerment, resilience, or sparking joy, email us at Calilily@avaansmedia.com.