Present and utterly fragile
The awkward evolution of thinking
December 15, 2024
I dig working behind the scenes. Honing in and making sense of the details, these are things I’m good at. I like to imagine them like a 3D map in my mind. Seeing the precise movements here or there. When it comes to organization and finding a system, it’s like discovering and documenting a map. The process intrigues me. I love the art of reflected back – more like the moon than the sun. Taking time to think and write and then reconfigure. Limiting belief: no one wants that kind of help. Would they pay for it?
This was my solicited statement prompted by the following: share your strengths, your super power, and if you’re aware of any self-limiting belief, (chances are it is likely) share that too. Now that I think about it, it was quite the exposé in a virtual room full of strangers. The scene being an online webinar with a business coach and author. It was one of those multi-day boot-camps with the inflated “work less, make more…this is how millionaires are made” tagline. It also had the illusion of being live, yet I could tell it wasn’t. So not only did it make for an oddly strange and flat landscape to spill one's guts, but it reinforced an interesting perspective I’ve noticed that’s linked to scale—the less personal it is.
What was semi-personal, in its interactive slightness, was the chat thread. A phenomena, that to this day, I still haven't gotten used to and don’t want to. I find them relentless and more often than not, distracting. I prefer being with people or not. But there I was. I was curious. I was willing to show up.
One of the responses I received from my previously mentioned comment was, no don’t give up! You can be the sun. You’ve got this. No! No! No! to being behind the scenes. You mustn't settle. Don’t hide! Now this was not from the coach and producer herself but from a fellow attendee. One of the hundreds attending and going batty in the comments. Rather than providing support or solace, it momentarily destabilized me. I’m sure this woman had good intentions—trying to flex her coach-in-development muscles. But it missed the mark.
Attendee after attendee echoed her same zeel. This is what you gotta do to make the million. When it was all said and done, I was disappointed and left the session feeling a bit sad, irritated, and slightly scattered. Worst of all, second guessing myself, in the haze of post boot-camp webinar delirium. Have I got this all wrong? Is the plan to build a replica of what the coach has built? Was I not clear? Did what I share not land?
Sometimes the ego of others can run amuck hijacking so-called good intentions and leveling fragile, still under construction, thoughts. I’m certainly guilty of this myself. Giving advice when it isn’t asked for. So I’m making an ardent attempt to sit back, remain humble and curious, and listen with a gentle tell-me-more-because-I-know-there-is-more attitude. I know when I’m granted this kind of generosity it feels good. There’s space to breathe and explore and tell stories.
In that process, I’ve discovered a few things. Many, masters of their craft, quietly go about their work and life and have no desire to be in the spotlight. It doesn’t make the work nor the person less worthy or irrelevant. Someone’s got to do it. Someone wants to do it. Someone lights up in the process. We are not all required nor preened to be multi-media producers, amassing throngs of IG followers, a podcast, or a YouTube channel. I, personally, like being the moon rather than the sun. There’s a quiet, cool, contemplative, maybe even mysterious nature to it. It’s magnetic. It phases in and out of being seen. The moon still illuminates yet never burns. It is not the sun, nor would it make any sense if it tried to be. It’s clear and powerful and complimentary in its own right.
As a kid I remember driving around in the car with my mom. She’d make comments about the young man walking down the street with the dyed mohawk, sleeveless denim jacket, metal everywhere, super punk and edgy…look at that, ugh. Why can’t he just be himself? The tone felt acidic, cruel even. An assumption was made and the results were cast: good or bad. The judgements extended to the girl with the tattoo cuff, the gentleman overweight and sad, the smoker dressed in all black. Something must be wrong was the general theme. In my mind he was only being himself. Expressing something, whatever it may be. Go him. How lucky. How cool is he! I guess I had my own assumptions too. Needless to say when she’d go on to tell me, you can be whatever you want, it felt deeply at odds with the running narrative. I was left feeling confused, fearful, even in disbelief that whatever I wanted wasn’t even possible.
Judgment can be quite venomous and polarizing. It’s fundamentalism, really and has the potential to hinder individual style, that particular signature which often juxtaposes the established and ubiquitous.
It takes courage to articulate what I like or what I’m interested in. Sometimes it feels as though I’m dredging through mud to even know what it is. It hasn’t always been a comfortable place to explore, let alone linger. I grew up accustomed to critique if agreement was not unanimous. Defending was substituted for understanding. I know this has played a role in how I react or how I direct my intentions and energies. Why practicing trust has been key. I try, earnestly, to understand, and to not feign interest. All this being said, the comment didn’t shock me. It was familiar—and so was the doubt it induced.
I’m keeping, keeping on.
Yours, Erin