The awkwardness of being me

With all the processing I’ve done in the last years, all the effort to leave the smaller, the familiar version of me behind, she is still there.

She is still my default setting: my inner child.

My experience of me as a child, my somatic memory of it is painfully shy and awkward. Did shyness develop as a coping mechanism because I felt criticized and shamed? Perhaps. Or perhaps I have already come here with certain baggage. I’m leaning in that direction.

In any case, I know now that the process of growth is toward wholeness.

Which means, I am on the path to integrating all the sides of me, the ones I love to flaunt and the ones I prefer hiding. Me and me also.

My scared and shy inner child will always be part of me.

The skill that I’ve been practicing is not to dismiss her worries and concerns but to acknowledge them, make room for them. But then not to allow her to drive the machine of my life (any more.)

Very unexpectedly, my inner child had a bit of a scare this morning – as I was getting ready for a photoshoot for my website. Waking up way before my alarm clock she tried to find many reasons why we need to postpone – again!

The lack of control over how the photographer will perceive me and capture me, and how my readers and potential clients will respond to me had me in palpable discomfort.

Will I attract or repel?

This has been the inner process for me every step of the way to Now. With every vulnerable share, article, picture, or video.

And yet it is this allowing the discomfort from being visible and putting myself out there anyway, that also quenches the need to be seen.

It is all part of the process.

So every bit of me that I reveal – becomes a part accepted and integrated back into my whole.

And with every new push from behind the covers, it becomes lighter and lighter to be me.

Thank you for bearing witness.