“We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.”
― Joseph Campbell
I am in a spiritual trust fall.
Almost exactly 14 years ago, I named some intentions for myself and my life and wrote a letter to God, in spite of the fact that I had been raised outside of any particular religion or church, and I wasn’t completely sure that I believed in God. The power of that letter was that I meant it, and I was just superstitious enough to feel that I had set in motion some process in my life. I wrote my letter and then tore it up into tiny pieces and scattered the pieces at the base of one of my favorite trees, a place that I liked to go and sit when I was feeling lonely or angry or overwhelmed or depressed. I hoped that, if there was a God out there somewhere, He or She would receive it.
As an anxious yet stubbornly independent young woman who was also deeply sensitive and prone to insecurity, I was in effect turning over my struggles to my earnest conception of what I thought the Divine might be if He or She did exist in some sense. At age 17, I had been quite successful in my life in a bunch of external ways, and yet I was increasingly lonely and at sea inside of myself. I hoped that if I stepped out more courageously in my life, that something would change, that life would somehow rise up and meet me halfway. I hoped that all the stories and myths I so dearly loved reflected something real and true about life and love and transformation and personal agency.
And the result of my letter to God, combined with the stress of an over-packed senior year—during which I tried to be everything to everybody and to do it all perfectly—was that my life came apart at the seams and I was forced to stop and—at last—pay attention to my own needs. The initial threshold I passed through at age 18, the self-imposed rite of passage represented by my letter to God, form the raw material for my mixed media book The Girl Who Listened with the Soles of her Feet, and the themes and challenges I explore in that book have become the basis for my coaching practice. In the writing of my book, and in my work in the world, I have continued to investigate and integrate the threads of my experiences at age 17 and 18, sifting gradually through what I learned during one of the most rich and also the most challenging years of my life.
Over the past decade, I have developed my own methodology and expanded on the themes I first explored in my book: namely that if we want to make a contribution through our life and work, that we must first start with ourselves, that we must undertake our own hero or heroine’s journey and embrace our role as the protagonist of our own life journey: no excuses; no shame; no apologies.
Over the past 14 years, I have been on my own journey, and I have come to a point where I have cleared away enough layers of old emotional stuff to see very clearly the outlines of my foundational hopes and dreams as well as my most primary fears. And it turns out that (shocker!), I want to belong, to be loved, and to be truly seen and valued for who I am; and I am also terrified that I won’t have these things, that I will miss out, or—worse—that I am not worthy of experiencing these things.
The truth is this: that I still struggle with anxiety, and many days the idea of ‘faith’ can seem laughably idealistic. (I mean, have you seen the world recently??) I am scared most of the time; I worry about anything and everything; and I am both deeply generous and courageous and also constantly having to challenge myself to step forward and be of service in my work. One moment, I’m rocking it and feeling confident that I have real value to offer; and the next, I am insecure and self-conscious (and hating myself for being insecure and self-conscious), and so paralyzed by the fear of rejection that I just want to get back in bed and hide from the world.
And yet, I keep showing up and I keep letting go. I keep surrendering what no longer serves me or my vision. I keep trusting, and I keep taking things step by step.
And both are true and present for me: the fear and doubt; and right alongside is the growing faith and gentle opening up. I am learning to be gentle and compassionate with myself in the midst of my fear; and I am learning to have faith in my life. And why am I doing all this? Why have I put myself through the mental and emotional ringer of stepping out on my own as a business owner and entrepreneur, building my own coaching practice? The reason is that there is something deeper that is calling me forward, and each time I have been willing to surrender an old, worn-out, disempowering story, life has opened up for me. I’m not saying it has always been easy or painless, and I have done it with a lot of support; but my life has been reliable and trustworthy in this way: when I am willing to risk letting go of my old story, when I surrender my assumptions about what is possible for me in my life and just show up and do my best, my life meets me there and blossoms.
I don’t have one-size-fits-all answers, and the best I know how to do is to get myself support, keep building my own mental, emotional, and physical resiliency, remind myself to take myself lightly (can you tell that I have a flair for the dramatic?); and just. Keep. Showing. Up. And as a life coach, if I preach self-acceptance and self-care, then I must show up for me first. If I ignore my own needs in order to go out and be a great coach, I end up seeking love and validation through my work, (which is bad news bears). Conversely, if I am showing up consistently for myself in all of my complex, messy wholeness, then I can also offer the same level of clarity, honesty, and compassion to my clients.
Here’s My Recipe for Courage
- Get crystal clear on your goal: what do you most deeply want?
- Confide in a trusted friend, someone who will hear your goal with kindness and acceptance. If you aren’t sure that you feel fully safe with friends or family, find a therapist, coach, or other safe ally to be a sounding board for you and to help build in some accountability.
- Break your scary actions down into manageable pieces, (so manageable that you think it’s almost laughable).
- Take that one step.
- Celebrate and acknowledge yourself. You can include your friend/ally in your celebration as well. Take a moment to brag. Swagger a little.
- Rest.
- Repeat with the next laughably small step.
One response
Dearest Lucy,
Such a beautiful expression of deep inquiry. I love your authenticity, your courage, your willingness to ask the questions.
I hear your daily struggle to open your life and grow fully into your own self. I am inspired by your journey and your work.
You are such a blessing to me!
Shari