When I set out to get serious about this “writing thing” a year ago, I didn’t know where I was headed or what would come of it. I knew only with certainty that the pull of my heart and Soul had grown so strong that I no longer could resist as I’d done for all of my life up to that point.
Having breathed life into my blog as one platform for my writing, the awakening writer in me now is fully awake. I’m eager and emboldened to press forward with claiming the authentic story of my life and inspiring others to do the same. However, even with such resolve, I’m keenly aware of the need for vigilance in standing guard at the portal of my mind to ensure I stay on course with my dreams.
As I worked on the refresh of my website these past few months, I subconsciously was aware of feeling something out of alignment, but I ignored the whisper and kept powering through. I completed my coaching certification and headed ninety miles an hour down the path of creating a transformational coaching program to launch with my new site. I was totally oblivious to the fact that any time I wasn’t writing meant I wasn’t writing – I wasn’t focusing on my craft, my truest passion.
In the narrow-minded plight to put myself out into the world as a coach, I ignored the fact that it wasn’t a complete “Hell, Yes!” for me. I was a woman on a mission, but it turns out it was a mission for the sake of doing rather than being. I was a woman intent on doing what I thought I must to create a marketable service. The problem was that, in the process of doing, I was creating greater and greater distance from being the writer I am at my very core. I never saw this smoking curveball headed my way until it landed squarely between my eyes with a loud smack.
Only last month, a dear friend remarked over dinner about the excitement for the launch of my coaching practice and how it must make me feel so alive. I answered matter-of-factly, “Writing is what makes me come alive. After I get my business going, then I’ll have time to write.” It was as though my higher Self was witnessing the me borne of conservative convention, screaming, “WTF?! Have you learned nothing all this time?”
I thought I’d claimed my authentic story when I’d presented myself to the world as a writer through my blog last year. Yes, I’d begun to write again, and, yes, sharing my writing in such a public way was a big step-out for me, but I didn’t realize until that very moment that I’d still been acting in my comfortable, conservative old way of putting only one foot in the water.
There I was, on the verge of building a whole new elaborate gig that would have served the same purpose as all distractions prior, to distract me from pouring my heart and Soul into telling stories and writing books that inspire and transform.
Up until that moment, I didn’t realize I’d still been harboring the fear of not being good enough, a fear of failure.
Wow. As frightening as I found the fear of failure, it scared me even more to recognize how crafty my subconscious mind could be and the lengths she could go in the noble name of self-protection.
Rather than risk failing at what I love, I’d subconsciously thought it safer to succeed at something less.
I’m in grateful awe of the Divine intervention that pulled me back in the nick of time and set me straight with my True North. I nixed the launch of my group coaching program in service of the writer I am, here to teach and inspire through my gift with words. This is my beginning, my end, my everything. This is the authentic story to which I lay full claim.
Fear can be deceptively effective in holding us back from playing full out. Are you being true to your authentic story?
Take honest stock of whether you’re living in service of what you yearn to create in the world. Make course corrections if you find choices and actions that don’t serve your mission.
The Universe can’t help but conspire for our success when we befriend fear and align with our purpose.
