What Doesn’t Kill You Calls You Again in Six Months
I finally put my finger on why I’ve been waking up with low level anxiety these days.
For the first time in a long time, maybe for the first time in my life, my success is dependent on other people liking something I've created. For this business Mark and I are building to succeed, people have to like these overalls enough to buy them, not just compliment them,
That low level anxiety is something that used to be the background static of my life.
“I’m good if you think I’m good. I’m good if I help you feel good. I’m good if you approve of me.”
It wasn’t until my forties and fifties that life became too exhausting to keep it up. Anaïs Nin wrote, "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
That perfectly captures what it felt like.
It became harder to keep organizing my life around everyone else's validation than to begin trusting my own. So I started feeling my way into that.
I am worthy. As is. Right now.
Over time I’ve learned to recognize those old patterns when they come back online. Old feelings of judgement, isolation, superiority, inferiority. I’ve learned not to beat myself up for having them. I notice them, I let them pass, and I sink back into the ease of just being fully me, flaws and all. To give myself the love and attention I’ve always craved.
This practice has changed my life. I wake up with joy instead of flight-or-flight. I write poetry and sing and create things because I like it. I love it. That’s enough.
But this new thing feels different. What happens when I’m creating something that actually has to sell? What happens when my creativity, my taste, my instincts, my decisions are suddenly connected to the scoreboard?
Why does that scare me so much?
Last Tuesday Mark and I were walking when I saw a phrase painted on the sidewalk: What doesn’t kill you will call you again in six months.
I laughed out loud. Because that’s exactly how life feels. The lessons we think we’ve graduated from have a funny way of showing back up.
Maybe mine is learning not to confuse approval with worth.
