Authenticity and Fear
Hello friends, it's been a minute.
Some of the delay in my blogging is the result of traveling and living a full life. Nonetheless, in honor of transparency and authenticity, there has also been another more shadowy aspect holding back my posts. I'll start with a story.
Just over 2 weeks ago I went back to DC for my 5 year college reunion. So yes, the answer to "how long's it been," is, in fact, fairly long. I have been looking forward to this reunion for a few months - excited to see friends as well as the people I have only kept up with peripherally through social media. However, a day or two before the reunion, I started to get a little nervous. In following many of my former classmates virtual lives, I have seen them take off professionally, romantically, and creatively. On the other hand, I feel more like I'm dog paddling through life with no clear idea of where the shore is that I'm supposed to be swimming toward. I kept playing out my response to the question of, "Hey, Kaitlin - how's it going? What are you up to?" -- "Oh, you know, just severely underemployed flailing around with no idea of where I'm going - you?"
That answer is not one that plays well to a top 4-year University crowd, or so I thought. I felt a moderate amount of shame at seeing all these former classmates and having seemingly nothing to show for all my hard-work, education and privileges. However, instead of falling into a shame spiral like I might have in the past, I remembered that for all I may or may not have accomplished in the external world - the one visible and commendable to others - I have moved my internal landscape forward lightyears since college. I have put in the work to ground myself and to heal many wounds and traumas from my life; I have continually strived to become the kind of person I want to be. And in being the kind of person I want to be, I have also found some comfort and power in being honest with people about where I am in life. While I don't think I always reach the level of vulnerability that Brené Brown talks about, I do try to hold my center more and more in interactions with people so that I can present myself authentically.
On the flight to DC, I was seated right next to a fellow classmate and we started chatting about life. When the inevitable question came up, I answered honestly that I was still in the midst of figuring it out and had recently been teaching yoga, working part time in a non-toxic skincare/beauty shop, and applying to more full time opportunities while waiting on applications to other programs. I summarized, "you know, just flailing a bit." Her response, far from being negative, was to say that she was glad I was figuring things out and that she found it refreshing that I was brave enough to be honest where I was at. And more than just saying those things, by meeting her from a place of authenticity, we were able to have a deeper and more honest conversation the rest of the flight about our lives. For the rest of the weekend, I met people from this place of being centered in myself amidst the chaos in my life path and was pleasantly surprised at how much it created positive interactions with classmates in situations that caused me to lose my sense of self in the past.
While this trip was a positive reminder of how to ground in my my sense of self and how powerful that is, there have been a lot of moments lately where it has been hard to do that. Lately I have been feeling the full weight of my underutilized potential as I feel I haven't contributed much to the world in a while. This weight has been getting me down on occasion and causing me to doubt myself or feel scared to put myself out there again. That includes in making content for this blog and my budding wellness community website, CoraLuna. So, while I have been talking the talk about trying to make things happen for myself professionally and in my community, I have found myself struggling to walk the walk. Some of this is undoubtably very subconscious, but by writing this publicly I hope to confront my own fears and practice putting more content out there in the world that I feel is important to share.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I hope you too can find some grounding in your self to start the week. And if you ever want to meet and talk from an authentic place, I am always here to practice meeting each other in our vulnerability with love.