The inner voices are and have always been my problem, internalized beliefs i picked up along the way from exes and my mom.
For daring to dream, for living too boldly, for experiencing life outside of the dreams she wanted me to pursue.
“You can’t do that.”
“That’s impossible.”
“You can’t do it alone.”
“That will never work?”
“Where do you get the nerve?”
It’s a million statements in my head any time the idea muse strikes and i am David vs Goliath with a tiny bat trying to keep a big monster made of a million tiny doubts from stomping all over my inner potential.
Every day is big and scary.
Therapy and meditations and yoga and working out and considering all the factors and pouring over every detail – none of it works like just doing it.
I discovered that’s how, today.
That the only way to one-hit the dialogue of self-doubt imposter syndrome that they’ve so graciously installed inside your head is to just do the things you think you can’t do.
Run a business by yourself? You’re doing it.
Do a whole ass photoshoot brewing product you’ve only brewed once before? Done.
Get your first magazine article solo? Okay.
Certifications for the FDA? Working.
Closing new accounts while drowning in production? No problem.
Re-inventing production for greater efficiency? Yep.
Name it, fear it, do it.
Action cures fear.
I am not just dismantling those voices, but i am single-handedly rebuilding the foundation i built upon them that said i had to give a fuck what anyone else thought or for even a moment consider that my dreams are only valid when my loved ones approve.
My sister gave me my childhood album that my mom collected on our behalf.
There were no happy memories inside it, no family photos, no first locks of hair or little handwritten cards, only achievement after achievement as i tried desperately to grasp the dangling carrot of false hope she dropped in front of me. And then? Transferred that same false hope to every romantic relationship – to “earn love” – to perform, achieve… if i lose 10 lbs, he’ll stop cheating. If i just make his business successful he’ll stop ignoring me. If am less needy, he’ll finally want me.
Turns out, these boxes they ask us to live in are hella stuffy and cramped.
The era of apology, of box-stuffing myself, of externalized validation, of too-muchness, of never-enoughness, of heart-on-your-shoulder but also too-toughness… they’re all coming to an end.
I am Kevin McCallister screaming in the basement, “DO YOU HEAR ME? IM NOT AFRAID ANYMORE.”
I will burn myself down and rise a thousand more times before i allow myself to ever again be defined by whether or not you can choose me.
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