I thought I was over it. I thought I had done all the work I needed to, and that I was finally self- confident. After all my self-care rituals, positive affirmations, books on women’s empowerment, I was feeling more confident than I had every felt. I walked around quoting Rachel Hollis, saying things like, “Your opinion of me is none of my business”. I encouraged my friends, my kids, my husband to think the same thing – what matters is the truth, not what others think of you. I got so confident that I charged ahead with some potentially risky things – live videos, blogging, pictures on social media of myself made up, un-made up, fat, no longer fat, you name it, I was putting it out there. And I was feeling good. I was feeling so good that I started to feel that familiar feeling. You know that feeling? The one that creeps up on you when everything is good, and you wonder, “How long will this last?” or, “is this too good to be true?”. That feeling started to creep up on me right around the time the quarantine began to get draining. I whisked it away, feeding myself with podcasts, videos, learning about exciting things, creating, and sharing.
Then I had the brilliant idea to be authentic. “Wait, I thought you were being authentic”, you ask. No, I mean, really authentic. Until this point, I was being pretty vanilla on social media – your friendly, non-threatening essential oils lover. “Come join me in the fun” type of message. “Everyone is Welcome”, “I’m not a hippy, just a normal person”, etc… Sure, I posted some unbecoming pictures of myself to get my point across, but I was not telling people what I TRULY was going through or what I felt very passionately about (except for oils). This is all hindsight of course. At the time, I was feeling confident and telling myself I was being authentic. I can’t explain why or how it happened, but I just felt this build up. I would occasionally post some of my personal experiences (something actually authentic and I used my social media as a type of diary/journal in that case), nothing bad happened, and in fact, people responded, so I kept it up. But then I decided to post about a hot button, a very controversial subject. So I set the stage with my audience, alerting them that I could no longer be silent, that I felt compelled to share information to get them to think critically and ask questions. I hit the share button in anticipation, wondering what the reaction would be, but not feeling scared. All night I got positive comments, people thanking me for being brave and saying the words they were feeling. And then it happened. One person, only one person out of about 60 who commented or liked, wrote a comment that literally encompassed every. single. thing I had feared others would think or say about me.
As I am writing this I’m realizing it had to be a God thing, or that God is involved somehow, because every point this person made about what he did not like about me (and let me tell ya it was a long list of dislikes), was exactly what had caused me to have self-doubt in the past. And now I’m having to do more emotional work – probably work that I should have been doing all along because you never fully arrive, right? Aren’t we all just a constant work in progress? The day after this incident I devoured podcasts, but didn’t really have a theme for what I wanted to listen to. I just wanted distraction. Amazingly, the two podcasts I ended up listening to were EXACTLY what I needed to hear. Again, I’m telling you, God has his hand all over this one (seriously I had no idea what I would learn by the titles of these podcasts).
No matter how much work we do and progress we make, whether it’s self-care routines, anxiety, or self-love, the weeds always grow back. We have to keep weeding out those negative thoughts, bad habits, and distractions. It hit me as I was listening that I had become over-confident – I had stopped doing the daily work to keep the weeds of self-doubt out of my garden. My second realization was that until recently I had not been authentic, which was why everything felt dandy – I was skating by, everything was peaceful, people liked me, I wasn’t shaking any trees. The MOMENT I was authentic, that is when the real test began. Authenticity, by nature, is NEVER peaceful or easy. It’s hard work. It means shedding the expectations that people have of you, and that you have of yourself. It means you are open to being disliked or criticized. When you are truly authentic, you cannot possibly please EVERYONE. That cannot happen because authenticity means you are taking a stand. The soap box you are on may look like a sturdy podium to some, or a dirty, squatty, meaningless crate to others. And guess what? The same messages you heard as a kid are still out there today – posting pretty pictures of yourself is “needy”, or “vain”; “Your voice does not matter, only what the group thinks matters; “Be nice, don’t say anything that will hurt someone else’s feelings”; “If I disagree with you, you’ve hurt my feelings and you’re a mean person”; “Don’t be a religious freak – you have to be tolerant of other people who don’t believe in God or who believe in something else so hush… don’t make them feel bad or not included by sharing your faith”.
Luckily on the day I received that distressing message, I somehow was prepared. I had decided that morning to use Bergamot, the oil of self-love, and spearmint, the oil of confident speech. I had prepared myself for my truth telling without realizing how much I was going to need to dig deep and truly feel the power of those oils. Think about it – self-love means accepting your authentic self, and having confident speech means being able to share your voice knowing that you could be rejected, or simply not heard… But you know what, stifling your voice, stuffing it, hiding your true self is worse than all of those potential outcomes. I would do it again the same way. Except, I will now remember to do some occasional weeding.
Much Love,
Aimee
Resources for authentic growth:
Delia, Lalah. Vibrate Higher Daily: Live your power. https://www.amazon.com/Vibrate-Higher-Daily-Live-Power/dp/0062905147/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1M8ZZN0MFZ646&dchild=1&keywords=lalah+delia+book&qid=1592161931&sprefix=lalah+deli%2Caps%2C248&sr=8-1
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