Too Many Fears Control Your Life And You Know It
It takes one to know one, and I'm making a change.
I’ve been scared of pushing that monetize button.
I have plenty of real and exaggerated reasons.
I have a habit of monetizing hobbies, turning them into jobs, and then losing my love for them.
I also have a fear of failure.
But I think it’s the belief that I’m not worthy that is holding me back.
“Nah Bestie, we love ourselves too much to do that here.”
My friend and I were hanging out on a tiresome weekday evening, having a laugh, talking through our problems, exploring the meaning of life.
This time we were joking about smoking cannabis, and how awful it tastes when a joint goes out while you try to save the burning ember but inhaling aggressively but it is already too late.
We both did it. We felt like it was our responsibility to keep it lit. That to let it go out was somehow a personal, perhaps moral, failing.
The worst part was we still had matches. Relighting it was simply a matter of opening the little glass bottle, pouring one out into your hand, and striking it off the sandpaper strip glued to the bottom.
We’d laugh about our attempts to keep the joint lit, and laugh when the other person failed and got a lungful of burnt flavour. Out of amusement, and empathy.
Not out of judgement. Never with negativity.
That’s when they said it. I was coughing out the flavour of a dead joint, and fumbling for a new match.
“Nah Bestie, we love ourselves too much to do that here. Next time just grab a match if you aren’t sure. There’s no need to suffer like that.”
We laughed like idiots and committed to each other that we would stop trying to save dead joints, and just start relighting them.
But I don’t think we were just talking about smoking cannabis.
I needed this reminder as I berated myself for my failings, deserved or not. Certainly not kindly. Certainly not in a constructive way.
We love ourselves to much to do that here.
I am a writer. I have been a writer my whole life.
Now I want to embrace it. Commit to it. Obsess over it.
And part of that is taking it seriously enough to face the beliefs that are holding me back.
I’m learning to love myself because I am being shown I’m not unlovable.
We tell people that they must learn to love themselves before we can expect anyone else to love them. But what if we have that backwards?
What if in order to overcome the belief that we are not worthy, through the acts of rejection we have experienced time and time again, we don’t need to harden our resolve and repeat mantras to ourselves?
What if what we need is the space, warmth, and safety of someone who loves us like a seed being moved from the shade to the sun where it is meant to be. Where it can flourish.
Wouldn’t that be something?
And maybe, as I have told so many friends and entrepreneurs I’ve shared ideas with, I can put myself out there with honesty and vulnerability.
That I can let other people decide for themselves whether or not they can and want to financially support my writing.
Instead of refusing to offer them the choice.
Instead of hiding myself away.
I’ve added paid subscriptions to From the Fringes. There’s no obligation, no inflated FOMO pressure from me. Just the option for those that want to read the things I don’t make as public.
Where are you holding yourself back through fear and negative beliefs? Which one can you take aim at and push past?
There’s no way out but through.
