This week, in the week of identity, my chooks and I have been working on what it means to be YOU. Yourself. In entirety. Authentically.
Who would have thought it’s such a hard gig?
I wrote the post below before I published my Facebook page. Which is now well and truly published and not at all uncomfortable (once I did it). A couple of weeks ago, when this website went live I did the freak out all over again.
I may have had an expresso martini late afternoon with my friend for her birthday (which was the double whammy of alcohol and coffee, which makes me nuts anyway) and as I just tried to breathe through the overwhelming feeling overload (hope and excitement – caffeine – and frivolousness and lethargy – alcohol but not enough to be drunk) I got this message from my web designer.
Your website is going live NOW.
Well. Lost it. In the back of the car. Had to lie down. Fan myself. Wail. My poor friends were all like “what’s with you?”. I could not speak (very rare) for about 2 seconds (not that rare).
HOPE. EXCITEMENT. FRIVOLOUSNESS. LETHARGY. SELF-PROMOTION.
MORE WAILING.
And you know. My website is amazing. But it is in MY name. With MY face all over it. And all about ME. And for all of you who may have thought I’m just down with that. I’m not. But if I don’t get down with that I may as well give it all up now.
And sometimes just remind myself that I have felt this before, and then I’ve taken ACTION and it was OK or GOOD or even CRAZYAMAZING.
So here’s what it’s all about underneath that.
If I show you, and you understand, maybe it can help you too?
I’ve been putting off doing all this homework for my business. Like my business Facebook page mostly. And anything else that’s about promoting what I do for my work. I’ve been watching my resistance to it. I have an unpublished FB page pretty much ready to go. I’ve started on my website. It seems ridiculous and lame to be resisting it, but I am. I wonder what I am really worried about?
What if I tell people that sometimes I am challenged by the possibility of me? Does that seem congruent with the possibilities and endlessness of learning about who you are and what you love and how to live a life about that?
What if people know how my last relationship went down in flames? Would they judge me for not noticing sooner what I was doing? For loving someone capable of doing what he did? For openly and very publicly professing my love for him all over the place, and then being so wrong about who he was?
What if sometimes I fuck about and spend too much time on Facebook (not doing my business page) reading articles that interest me about relationships and people and life, and looking at other peoples’ photos and wondering why people write annoying stuff?
What if someone reads my stuff and thinks I’m annoying?
What if I’m not that great at this whole thing or (holy fucking shit!!!) what if I’m really, really good at it? Does that makes me some kind of show off?
What if so many people like it they all want to work with me and I get too busy?
What if my kids complain (more) about how I don’t always take them to or pick them up from school?
What if I show people who I really am and they don’t like me?
Oh, there it is. The really big question. The one that makes me feel a bit ick inside. Like I’m not the wise and powerful woman I am, but the little girl who’s always been afraid of that. She just needs some reassurance (from the older, wiser part of me) that the truth as it seems to be so far is that the more I am true to who I really am and say what is true for me, the more people like me. The more I became real and stopped pretending (or trying) to have it all together, the more relief the people in my life felt about me being able to get where they were or are. So that is all I have to offer.
Me.
If I am your teacher or your mentor or your friend or your scapegoat, I can be any and all of those things. I can accept that, just as what I do is not for everyone, neither am I. For everyone. But if I could be for you, and you have wondered if there is some way I could be the person who guides you back to yourself, then all you have to do is make contact with me and I can be that.
You don’t even have to like me. Sometimes I will make you do and think about things that are uncomfortable. Sometimes I will challenge everything you thought was true about yourself and the world. Sometimes I will make you say the last thing you ever wanted to say out loud, and then it will be done and you can move on.
The last thing I ever wanted to say out loud was ‘but what if you don’t like me?’ but now I’ve said it I realise it never mattered anyway.
