But I’m scared… but I am not pretty…but I am not smart… but I’m too raw… but I can’t… but no one will like it… but they may get offended, but they may not like me… but I don’t know how to be professional… but I am not as good as you… but I’m not enough.
These are all things I have told myself for years. One day, when I was giving my friend, Holly, a list of reasons why I couldn’t write, she looked me in the face and said “Who cares, Lorianna, be you. Who cares if they don’t like it?” Maybe your fears aren’t the same as mine but make no mistake, we all are afraid of something. I know because I hear fears like this all day with the clients I provide life coaching and online counseling for.
So often we are not honest with ourselves and are quick to dismiss the possibility that we are, in fact, scared. And I get it. I know why we do this. When we acknowledge our fear, we feel vulnerable and when we feel vulnerable, we feel more fear. Our brains are wired to avoid, at all cost, the things we are scared of.
However, the day Holly, said that to me it became even more uncomfortably obvious that my fear was preventing me from being me. Our fears can stop us from being authentically ourselves and prevents us from being free. Fear stifles our joy and ultimately prevents us from fully living. It keeps us quiet, it prevents us from sharing our gifts, and sadly, it stops others too.
When I appear to have it all together and only show people the “good stuff” it creates an unspoken expectation of perfection and judgement both with ourselves and with the people in our presence.
How freaking exhausting and off putting!! We must ask ourselves, what kind of atmosphere am I creating? What is the message I am sending? I am going to tell you a very important secret. When we pretend to have it all together and when we have to been seen as prefect, no one wants to be around us. You know why? It’s because we are stifling our gift and theirs too. Who we truly are is a gift to this world, imperfections and all.
My friends and I have a thing we do, when it’s just us girls and when one of us is feeling bad about our weight. One, or all of us, will expose to the other, our butt and then squeeze our butt cheeks together to create a butt full of cellulite. We all laugh and instead of feeling alone in our perceived failure and imperfections we feel embraced, loved, and supported. Instead of feeling shame and alone we feel part of a sisterhood that creates an atmosphere where people have freedom to be vulnerable, imperfect, and completely themselves. If the cellulite butt could talk I imagine it would say, “You feel bad about yourself? Have you seen me lately? Get over yourself and figure out a way.”
When we focus on our imperfections, we tend to exaggerate them and we forget what we DO have, the ability to grow, change and become better.
You are not the only one battling against their fears and insecurities. We are all fighting and some days we lose and some days we win. We often don’t want to show the world the days we are losing, but I'd like to extend Holly's challenge to you. Stop trying to control everyone's opinion of you by looking perfect and finally allow yourself to be you, cellulite butt and all.