My website has been complete for a year and a half now. There are approximately 187 reasons I’ve given myself for why that is, and yet I haven’t published a single word here. I’ll spare you 186 of those reasons and give you the extreme nutshell version which is: pure, unadulterated, paralyzing, soul-crushing fear. 

(Stay tuned for my thoughts on regret, but for today I think fear is enough). 

Shortly after my website went live, I experienced a betrayal that knocked the wind out of me. The details aren’t important, but what is important (as well as terrifying as I self reflect) is that it made me question myself and my worth to my very core. During that time, I lost one of my closest family members and learned that I had a hormonal condition that was wreaking havoc on my body and my emotions. I was at an all time low. 

I kept thinking—who am I to write about health when my life is a mess? Who am I to be an authority on anything, when I am hopelessly flawed?

Do you ever have a voice like that in your head? What I’ve learned from every client I’ve ever had, every friend I’ve ever known, and most of all, from being in my own brain—is that we are our own harshest critics. Still, I felt that I should know better. I help people with this all the time! And yet, I haven’t been able to get over my own crippling fear. I’ve been waiting till I have the perfect thing to say. But the reality is, I will be waiting forever. Perfection? I don’t know her.

So instead of attempting perfection, I offer you the root of my fear. If I’m going to actually look in the mirror and be brutally honest with myself, what I’m most scared of isn’t that I don’t think I have something to say or offer the world. I know that I’m good at my job. I know that I care deeply. I trust myself to do the work and stick with it even when it’s hard. I have proven to myself in the line of fire that given the opportunity to hurt someone, I will choose not to hurt someone. Even if that person has hurt me deeply, and it might feel temporarily fulfilling to bask in a little vengeance. What I’m most scared of, rather, is that people will make fun of me. 

It’s pretty humbling to realize a year and a half later that the crux of my self inflicted torture and procrastination is the very same reason I agonized over getting bangs in the 6th grade.

Well guess what? Those bangs turned out to be a giant mistake. The year was 1995. The technology needed to tame my hair was yet to be invented. I looked crazy for a solid 6 months. And you know what? People did make fun of me. And I survived. I hated every minute of it, but I survived.

It’s funny how those things stick with us throughout the years. This big, giant fear inside of me, isn’t even really real. It’s just a man behind a curtain. Yet it is powerful. As an adult with perspective, I know it’s pretty unlikely that anyone is going to make fun of me (at least to my face). I don’t have much of a social media presence, so anyone who is there is someone that I trust. The sky is probably not going to fall on me today.

But since I cannot seem to get past this mental block of potential mortification, I am compelled to say it out loud. I don’t want to, but I think it’s necessary. I firmly believe that if you can’t say something out loud, you can’t fix it. Now that that’s out of the way, I think I can finally get to work. 

My next order of business will be how to tackle these voices in our heads. I really hope you come back to read about it. 

And if you really must make fun of me….I beg of you, don’t make it about the hair. At least have the decency to go after my personality.