welcome

Hello, I’m Torre

This site is dedicated to all the worriers. I get it. You’re totally right to feel anxious. There’s a lot to be worried about!

Like, for example, and in no particular order: killer robots, the Anthropocene, those sinkholes that keep popping open in Russia like champagne corks to celebrate the end of mankind, what the future might look like if Amazon, Google, Apple and Costco merge into one giant dictatorship called Apooglezonco and last, but by no means least, selfie poles.

But there is hope. The outside world might feel horrendously messy, but we are in control of our own inner spaces. That’s what we’re going to try to work on here: Calm inner spaces.

Keep calm and chill out

There’s nothing to fear

Well, except for EVERYTHING! You know those terrifying films with lots of blood and ghosts and monsters who eat small children? Yeah, my dad wrote those. I was binge-watching gore from birth. Raised on horror films, I learned to milk nightmares from my imagination in the way that the child of a farmer might learn to squeeze milk from a cow. My brain knows no limits when it comes to thinking up worst-case-scenarios.

Anxiety disorders? Oh yeah. I gots ‘em.

I’ve spent most of my adult life analysing my own fear – where it lives, what it looks like, and whether or not it can be overcome. In an attempt to rid myself of it, I’ve climbed mountains, sailed an ocean and hiked through places that make a dark, chilly wood look inviting – and a whole bunch of other shit besides. Through this, I’ve learned some things about fear.

Here’s what I’ve been working on:

How do you stop feeling scared?

Apart from the fact that fear is debilitating, ruinous and contagious, it’s also pretty fascinating. Look out into a crowd of humans – anywhere, anytime – and what you’re beholding is a swarm of fear-driven flesh monkeys. We all have it. It’s an unavoidable part of the human experience, but to what level must it control us?

That’s what I’ve been trying to understand.

What I can offer you here is the sum of my trials and errors, and what I’ve learned through over ten years of tackling fear. Think of it less like stiff, serious, leather-chair therapy and more like a crass, eccentric grandma offering up a box of mixed life lessons – some of which might be valuable golden nuggets, some of which might be deformed, crusty chocolates from 1982. I’ll leave you to do the sorting.

I have a new book coming out!

The Worrier’s Guide to the End of the World

A funny and heartwarming story of one woman’s pursuit to walk off a lifetime of fear – with a soulmate, a pair of bad shoes and whole lot of wine.

Torre DeRoche is at rock bottom following a breakup coinciding with her father’s death, when she crosses paths with the goofy and spirited Masha, who is pursuing her dream of walking the world. When Masha invites Torre to join her pilgrimage through the gorgeous region of Tuscany – drinking wine, foraging wild berries and twirling on hillsides – Torre straps on a pair of flimsy street shoes and gets rambling.

But the magical hills of Italy are nothing like the dusty and merciless roads of India where the pair wind up, after improvising a pilgrimage in the footsteps of Gandhi along his twenty-four day march to the seaside. Hoping to catch the nobleman’s fearlessness by osmosis and end the journey as two wise, svelte, and kick-ass warriors, the women are instead unravelled by worry that this might be one adventure too far. When they come face to face with their worst fears, they discover the power of friendship to save us from our darkest moments.

“…a funny and engrossing tale of loss, pain, and transformation … I couldn’t put it down!” –Matt Kepnes, New York Times Bestselling Author of How to Travel the World on $50 a Day