How to show up and let ourselves be seen when we don’t like who we are being
The last several months have been an incredible challenge for us.
Whether it’s been first hand or watching the chaos in the world, no one of us are coming out of this period without Coronovirus imprinting on the fabric of our being in some manner.
Some of us have it easier, and some of us won’t come out of it at all.
I’ve been looking retrospectively at myself and my life and asking questions:
Am I proud of the way I am living? The path I am on?
Proud of the results I’m achieving? The help or service I am providing to others?
Am I proud of who I am?
The truthful answer is no.
And there has been a whole side of my life going on in the background, stuff which only a few know.
Darkness and paralysing, agonising moments, days and months which I’ve never dared to share.
“When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on our gifts, those unique contributions that only we can make. Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience…Rather than sitting on the sidelines and hurling judgment or advice, we must dare to show up and let ourselves be seen.
This is vulnerability.
This is daring greatly.”
~ Brene Brown
The truth is I’ve been very much playing the game of life full-on, just not the games I want to play.
Nor do I want to write about them, or talk about them.
They make me feel like less of a human being.
They make me feel like I’m weak.
They make me feel fundamentally broken.
I feel so very vulnerable.
Yet I’ve decided to share this path anyway, to attempt to dare greatly.
I don’t know quite how yet, so bare with me, while I find my footing, and while I find clarity and conviction.
Bare with me while I muster up courage and strength,
While I try and find the right words, and find my voice,
While I try and figure out how to dare to show up and let myself be seen when I don’t like what is going on in my life, and when I don’t like who I am being.
What I do know is why I’m doing this; I’m clear on purpose.
The only reason I ever share anything is the thought that if I died tomorrow and it helped one person then my work here on the planet would have been done. I have grandiose dreams of standing for much more than this in the world and helping at a far grander scale, but ultimately if it was my final day, and I had the fortune to look back, I know what would bring me stillness, happiness and a sense of purpose fulfilled. If I shifted the trajectory of one person’s life so that it was different — it was better — because I helped, served or contributed in some way, then that could be enough for my heart to let go and know I’ve lived a full life.
I also know I’m not OK.
And I know it is OK to be not OK.
And I need you to know that it is OK not to be OK too.
We can be not OK together.
Like a really tiny gang who doesn’t whine about their problems, but instead bands together to find a way forward.
We can keep putting our best foot forward in the world and doing our darndest to show up and be the person we dream of being, as one of these days, we will be them. Fake it until we make it. To never think of it as being actually fake, instead, that we are vividly clear of where we are going to keep us moving forward, one step at a time, and try to avoid taking two steps back as often as possible.
You can find me here, and I’ll be posting as much as I can, doing the best I can, to fulfil this mission.
