“On the other side of fear, is freedom”
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Elizabeth Appell
Have you felt that way about something recently? What was it?
For me, it was writing and sharing my words with the world.
I remember an episode from Huberman Lab where Steven Pressfield and Huberman discussed this feeling…that they might explode if they did not act on that something. That’s how I had started feeling about publishing my work.
To be clear, writing was not the issue. Publishing it was.
I have had several blogs before this one (as some of you may know) and funnily, that was one of the things stopping me. Can you believe it? You’d think that someone who has posted regularly before, would find it easier to do it again. Not really. My published works is scattered across the internet and for some reason, it felt like a real problem.
One of the overthinking voices in my head came up with many reasons to not start another blog. It said that I should first get all my works in one place first before publishing new works. (IDK why)
But I sensed a strong fear of impermanence coming through that voice: What if this becomes another blog that I start and “abandon”?
I dug a little deeper and found fear of “failing” also cowering in the corner: What if our writing is too simplistic? Or makes sense to no one but me?
Steven Pressfield describes this as Resistance (with a capital “R”).
“The more important [this something is] to your soul’s growth, the stronger the resistance will be”, he says, and elaborates on how waves of Resistance will keep hitting you to make you procrastinate. But the higher the importance of that project to your soul’s evolution, the higher the resistance.
I did not consciously remember this quote when I decided to hit publish again a few days back. I just remember feeling like I just needed to do this, period.
Somewhere in the process the inner critic’s questions stopped having power over me.
Maybe it’s the effect of the mountains and the forests.
Maybe it was sitting with those uncomfortable feelings long enough.
Maybe it’s that of growing older. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Whatever it was… it amplified the feeling that I would burst if I did not publish. Not the academic “publish or perish” - that I feel is driven from fear again.
This? This was driven from a fire inside that just needed to find its place on the paper - not to burn it, to brighten it; Bare to the world all the emotions I want to, with a rawness that does not need to be contained but simply channelled somewhat meaningfully.
I do not know where this journey is going to take me but I know that this is where I want to and need to be.
So, here we are. :]
