Stepping onto the Stage (and the Behind the Scenes)

I wasn’t sure if I was going to share the ‘behind the scenes’ experience of this with you…but I want to.

Because this path of being a creative entrepreneur (and…well, being human)…oh my, it is full of highs and lows.  Of celebrating and struggling.

I confess it has been a pretty great year.  My courses are thriving and I’m madly in love with my work.

Then I stepped outside of my comfort zone when I was asked to do a ‘talk’ at a local gallery.

I’ve taught before, but have never done a ‘talk’ which felt totally different, and it was.

Teaching, I feel like my introvert self comes out and its hard to get my words out sometimes.  Would a talk be like this?  Or would it be like when I used to play music and I felt good onstage once I got past the nerves of getting there?

I had no clue which one it would be, all I knew was that I was wildly nervous to speak in front of a group.

Then another layer of nervousness arrived.

Would anyone come to my talk?

As the talk was nearing, I reached out to all my local offline friends.  My online and offline world have always felt quite separate and I don’t necessarily talk to my offline friends about my work too much but I really really hoped I would be able to have a few of them come support me (and maybe learn more about what I do).

I also contacted all the local pals I knew who had taken my classes and who I did know through my work.

One by one the No’s came back.  Everyone had a good reason.  Work, dr’s appointments, family obligations, self-care.

But as they came back as No’s one after another, I fell deep (WAY deep) into feelings of failure, of loneliness, of isolation, of not being loved or valued.

“Its not personal” my family said as I’d confess my feelings of failure.

I knew it wasn’t personal but it was truly so hard to convince my heart of that.

I also kept on getting emails from people saying “oh you’ll fill it” assuming that things come easy over here.  I think so often we assume everyone else’s entrepreneurial path is simple and without struggle, but likely none of ours are.

In my mind I knew no matter how many people came, it didn’t mean I wasn’t worthy of sharing my message or worthy of support, but our inner critic sure has a way of shouting louder and pulling at our heartstrings to make us believe something different to keep us in the fear.

But I had to come to terms with the fact that my specific fear, of none of my offline friends showing up for me…was coming true.

I fell into a deep state of panic for days and tried to reach out to more people to see if they could come and the no’s just kept on coming back.

It was looking like I was going to be doing a talk to about 4 people (I knew this cause I was obsessively checking how many tickets were sold).

I knew that I needed to focus on those 4 people who said yes.  That they were showing up (2 were even travelling from Portland for the talk)!

But I was in such a state of sadness and panic that I really wanted out.

I was THIS CLOSE to cancelling the whole thing.  I was literally crying for days.  I even reached out to some friends online and asked “Do we always need to push through the fear?  Isn’t it okay sometimes to listen to ourselves especially when our bodies are shouting NO”.

I felt like a protective Mama Bear wanting to keep myself safe from all this intense emotion.

It was quite honestly pretty interesting to experience (not in the moment but after the fact) as I mentioned yesterday…in my classes I talk a lot about facing fear and pushing through it and my friends, this was truly so hard to push through.  My body was truly in panic & stress mode and wanted out of the situation.

Then the day of the talk finally came and finally, after truly days of feeling very upset and in panic.  It finally subsided.

Relief.  Release.

Fear let go of its hold of me.

I had somehow walked through the fire and made it to the other side.

As I headed to the talk, I suddenly (and somewhat miraculously) felt pretty darn Zen.  

I found myself finally (FINALLY) able to focus in on the people who were showing up (and on showing up for myself).

Because I do feel like I have something of value to say, that I have worked hard to find my voice in this world and that I do want to share it.

The talk?

Well, it was AWESOME!

A few incredible friends I know from the online world and am getting to know in person came and oh my heart swelled as they came through the door.   Thank you so much Pace, Kyeli, Jennifer & Tonya!!! And so much thanks to Rachael Ashe for asking me to do the talk!   Then a few other gals came who I didn’t know at all.  They came to see me talk and learn about self-portraiture?  Wow wow wow.

Then I stepped in front of them and began.

I had practiced the talk a number of times and as I got up there I finally felt totally calm and I felt in tune with the energy of purpose.  My lovely friend Pace shared after the talk that “You could tell you have something to say to the world and that you were on a mission to say it”.  It was truly amazing to have my friends Pace & Kyeli there (all the way from Portland) as they helped me realize a few things I did right in the talk that I had no clue I was doing.

It felt amazing.

I felt like me.  Silly playful me.  Yet also that woman with a message to share and a story to tell.

It felt totally different from teaching and in fact it felt really good.

After the ‘talk’ part of the night I gave the folks there a few activities to try and was SO overjoyed when they jumped right in.  There were self-portraits happening everywhere.

I honestly wasn’t sure I’d say this but I am SO glad I pushed through the fear and did it.

Am I bummed that no local offline friends came?  Yes, but I’m slowly letting go of that.

I’m also starting to explore how much the support/friends/worthiness part is not at all about the talk.  I should also note that I’m freshly home from the Wise Bodies, Wise Hungers retreat so I’m still very much thinking about Rachel Cole’s amazing work and it is pretty deeply moving me these days.  Of course I knew all along this was not about the talk, but couldn’t emotionally separate the two at the time.  Rather, I think I am so clearly aware right now about the hungers I’m working with, one of those absolutely being ‘worthiness’ and this really showed up in not feeling worthy.

My stories, the ones that hold me back…were shouting wildly and I was listening to them wholeheartedly.

I wanted to share this with you in case you might be a creative entrepreneur and perhaps the e-course you’re teaching or the talk you’re doing isn’t filling.  This is wildly deeply vulnerable work we are doing and it truly does tap into our emotional world.

As well, I wanted to share this with you in need it the next time you go out of your comfort zone and fear starts hunting you.  You’ll be okay and you’ll make it through (though I know it sure doesn’t feel like that at the time).

And maybe I’m writing this for myself too, for next time I go out of my comfort zone and fear rears its head again, because going outside of our comfort zone is a good thing but mighty hard work isn’t it!

To remember that sometimes your fear DOES come true and you make it through, and that sometimes these kinds of moments actually help us build resilience, help us cope better next time that fear comes up again.

I also wanted to share a few photos from the talk with you.  If you saw these photos alone you wouldn’t know there was a ‘behind the scenes’ viv-saga, would you!

Because of course what we share on Instagram is only part of the stories and we are all a collection of choices of what we share and what we keep private.  So today I thought I’d pull back the curtains and share this with you even though it feels mighty vulnerable to (especially to share that crying self-portrait above which I never intended to share…I just wanted to take it in the moment to offer the feeling of being seen, to myself).