one small step forward

Here I am. It’s October 1st. It’s 7:20 am. Adam has just left for work. I have a full cup of coffee. Outside it is windy and rainy, and I love it. I love a good blustery fall storm. I love the cozy feeling of being inside. With a book. And my loved ones. My family. My little family: a man, and a cat. And me.

What is the shift I’m feeling in my life right now? I feel an urge to study it, to take time and space to sit with it. Like a friend. It’s an urge away from consuming. I can feel that. I don’t listen to the radio, I don’t really read blogs much these days. I want silence. I want space. I crave those things and I am making it happen. I am experimenting with NO and with not committing to plans. 

I am here on the verge of launching my new business and I’m scared. I’ll admit. I feel like for the last six months, that I’ve set up a whole workshop of beautiful tools, some I know how to use, some I don’t, and I’ve told people “Now I have this beautiful workshop!” and now I’m standing at the doorway, it’s quiet, the tools are waiting for me, and I’m scared. I feel like I’m supposed to go in and whip up a masterpiece. “No big deal, just being a creative genius over here.” And then dance around like a monkey, grinning and being all “YAY!!”, and showing it off. But what I really want to do is shut the door. Lock it. Turn up music. Get coffee. Tinker. Play. Quietly.

But I do want to share. I want to attract people, clients, friends, readers. But I’m scared. I’m scared of --

Liz G says, “Fear is boring. Everyone has it.” I cut myself off there, in the last sentence. I cut myself off from listing all my fears, which was totally where I was going with that. Because, I just read that part in her book where she lists fears for three pages. And you can go on, and on, and on. Fear never stops.

So, as she says, make space for it to exist along with creativity. Maybe make a little bed, like a cat bed, in the corner of your desk, and whenever you sit down to write, invite your fear to curl up in it, get cozy, go to sleep. Let it be relaxed. Tell it, “if anything scary happens, I’ll come wake you up right away.”

(I have an empty basket (made out of chopsticks) in the corner of my desk. Maybe that’s what I put it there for? Unknowingly?)

“But you can’t put this out into the world just like this,” fear says. “It needs to be polished. It needs to be perfect.”

What is my brand again? Down to earth. Empowering. Enthusiastic. (I'll tell you one of these days about how my business coaches helped me figure out my brand. It was fun.) I want to empower other people to give it a go. I want to show them that they can work through the fear too. I want to show them it's possible. 

Alright, well, this is long enough. Thanks for listening. One small step forward at a time, that's how this is done. I am in the workshop, I have turned on the lights.