That’s right. I said “AWESOMENESS!” After all, Shonda taught me to own my badassery and I am. Therefore, I am awesome and so you are. We may not be awesome every single moment of the day (FYI, no one is), but we are still powerful, awesome beings. And knowing this makes me want to shout from the roof top and pee my pants. Hey, being awesome is a kind of scary. The truth is I’ve allowed this fear of my awesomeness to prevent me from living a wholehearted life. Dreams were smushed and lost to the ether. But I’m tired of living small and watching dreams fade into nothingness. I am ready to shine! Aren’t you?
Don’t get me wrong, It’s not my belief that I’m the second-coming of Beyonce or Taylor Swift or Adele. I’m not talking about that kind of superstar.
I want to be the kind of superstar who embraces her skills versus hiding their full power from the world. To stop being the Goldilocks of Success. Not too much, not too little but just enough so I feel good AND safe. Enough with the safe. Let’s take some risk.
And now I’m back to wanting to pee my pants. Just keeping it real.
Choosing a Wholehearted Life
Brene Brown’s book, Rising Strong, spoke to me on so many levels and taught me about wholehearted living. She influenced my decision to change the focus on A Mindful Migration sooner rather than later because I want to live an authentic, wholehearted life where I feel connected and enough. This also means getting vulnerable, which many of us — myself included — struggle to do. We believe our vulnerabilities make us weak and should be hidden, while the opposite is true.
By nature, I am private and exposing my vulnerabilities, even to myself, makes me extremely uncomfortable, which is why I avoid doing it.
And yet ….
Just like I smushed my dreams into oblivion, I smushed my feelings, rather than dealing with them or expressing them in a constructive manner. But unlike my dreams, they didn’t fade into ash. They hid underneath the surface, lurking and biding their time. I fed them a tablespoon of doubt, a cup of anger and few shakes of guilt and mixed my emotion soup into a monster who ravaged me from the inside.
A Depression Monster Unleashed
Fact: Depression affects 1 out of 10 Americans. What causes depression is still unknown but is likely a mix of genetic, biological, environmental and psychosocial factors. Also fact: my years of unwillingness to be vulnerable and deal with my hurts and wounds is why this time has been so different and difficult. The monster finally broke free and demanded a reckoning.
This realization crushes me because this is my fault. Sure, the blame does not lie solely at my feet and yet it also does. I am the one who chose to bury my emotions and wounds and let them fester. And I am the one who must deal with the aftermath: low self-confidence, feelings of unworthiness, fear of not being enough and high anxiety where I over-think to the point of paralysis. I lost years sitting on the sidelines, numb to the world.
I am mad but that doesn’t change the past. But I am powerful enough to change the present.
I Set Myself Free
The first, important step for me to reclaim my power was to be extremely vulnerable and share a weakness that has much misinformation and stigma attached to it. But there shouldn’t be, which is why I told you the truth about living with depression.
It is scary and freeing. But it’s also real.
And to me, that is what wholehearted living is about. To be real and live with your whole heart, including the good and damaged parts. You decide what and with whom to share but always, always be honest with yourself. Don’t hide or smush those parts you don’t like or fear. Shine the brightest light you can on them.
This Little Light of Mine
Maybe there are some really dark places you’ll need to venture into before you can finally heal those wounds. In other instances, you may find that the hurts are mere flesh wounds and easily mended. In the end, what truly hurts us long-term is not knowing what hides in those dark places. I made-up stories and believed them, even though the stories were often lies or half-truths. But I still believed.
Fortunately, I know now that I do this and catch myself when I start making mountains out of molehills. I tell myself to stop and shine a light on what’s really going on: 99% of the time I am in protection mode. I make-up stories because I’m scared and feeling insecure about myself or my abilities. So I remind myself (sometimes repeatedly) that the truth, whether it’s good or bad, is always less painful than believing the lies.
Ready for a Awesome, Wholehearted Life
Sign me up! I want to embrace my inner goddess and live wholeheartedly. To put myself out there at full wattage versus a dimmed, safe version. And to truly shine bright without worrying what others think and owning my badassery. Best of all, I recognize that this is possible. Even though I’m still not super comfortable with being vulnerable, I recognize the reward — a wholehearted, awesome life — is worth the effort. Because facing our fears and vulnerability is what ultimately make us strong and awesome.
I wonder — what would happen if I unleashed my awesomeness? What would happen if you did it too?
I say we do it together.
Tanya
girl, never EVER suppress your wants/feelings/emotions/skills or anything!! we only have this one life so might as well ride this until the damn wheels fall off. unleash those skills, bask in your awesomeness and if people don’t like it, well, that’s fine too – they don’t have to read or listen, amirite????
I love this – “might as well ride this until the damn wheels fall off” and that’s what I’m going to do, Kathy! We do only have one life, so we might as well make the most of it and enjoy it!
I’m with Kathy – we have one life. Know your strengths and play to them. Know your weaknesses so they hurt you less. Go forth and be grand.
That is definitely my plan! To not live in fear of my greatness but to embrace and celebrate it. I (and everyone) was given talents for a reason – to use them and I am ready to be awesome versus playing it safe.
I agree with Steph and Kathy and yet I also understand where you’re coming from.
I think you’re amazing and awesome and i’m thrilled that you’re finally acknowledging it. I can’t wait to sit back and watch what you do.
Thanks, Jana! As I know you can relate, it’s so hard when doubt has such a stranglehold over you that you constantly second-guess your abilities. Even though you know, deep inside, that you can do and be so much more; it can be so, so hard to push aside that doubt and/or feelings of unworthiness. To stay in the shadows where it feels safe but that is not living. I appreciate your support so much, and I think you’re amazing and awesome too and can’t wait to see everything you accomplish as well. We are both going to be awesome!!
Love this post Tanya 🙂
I think you, Jana, and I are all in the same boat of wanting to be more fully engaged in our own lives and knowing that we have inside of us, the capacity to do more and to BE more!
We can do it!!!!
Thanks, Mackenzie! Yup, we three are stuck in the same boat together, but we finally got the engine revved up and are going places now. Like you said, there is so much potential inside of us and I agree – we can do it!!! I can’t wait to see what amazing things you and Jana do too, because the both of you are awesome. And is it wrong that I have the “Everything is awesome” song now stuck in my head? LOL!
Tanya, I can relate to soooo much of this. We all have our own personal journeys, but it is amazing how many of those journeys sound so familiar when fully described. What a great place to be in your journey ~ the place where you are ready to embrace your “awesomeness”!
It’s one of the reasons I’ve become much more open about where I am in my life’s journey. You can feel so isolated, like you’re the only one dealing with all this “stuff” and that can make even harder to break free. But everyone has “stuff” and I’ve gained so much support by sharing and hope that I, in turn, have helped other people on their journey. I am ready (and still honestly terrified but ready) to embrace my awesomeness. I don’t know where it will take me but that’s part of the journey.
‘ To be real and live with your whole heart, including the good and damaged parts’ yes. also, i agree with being honest with yourself. i think that is an extremely hard thing to learn how to do. embrace your awesomeness girl, because you are awesome. end of story.
It is a very difficult thing to do, Kristen. Sometimes I think being honest with ourselves is the hardest thing to do. For a variety of reasons, we don’t like to look that closely at ourselves. But when we don’t, it’s easy to also get trapped in the dark spots. Thank you for your kind words and support, Kristen. You are awesome too, my friend. End of story!
Oh my gosh, I am SO going through something similar right now. It’s terrifying on one level, yet you know you have to do it on another. Funny, as I was praying and talking with God just yesterday about this, and about how to heal from some past hurts, He spoke to my spirit and said, “Laurie, you’re focusing on the wrong thing. Instead of focusing on the incident that caused the hurt, focus on how you came out of it, you’re still here, and you are going to be okay.” That was powerful to me.
I’m so glad that you’re working through healing your past hurts too, Laurie. It is terrifying and yet very, very liberating too. I love how God spoke to you and what he said. Pure truth, there. We dwell so much on the incident when we need to remember how we made it through and are still standing. To recognize our power. Definitely a powerful message and thank you for sharing it with me!
I think a lot of us suppress our awesomeness and authentic selves due to all of the walls we have built over the years to protect ourselves. It seems like the easier path but strangely enough it ends up being the hardest yet least rewarding path. I’m glad you’re embracing your awesomeness and living your truth! It definitely is a freeing, yet scary feeling when you realize your potential!
You are so right, Emma. It did seem like the easiest and safest path but that is a complete illusion. I’m glad (and terrified) that I’m embracing my awesomeness, even if I don’t completely understand what that means yet but I don’t want to live a half-life any longer.