Doing it anyway

Showing up to what matters in spite of fear

Human Stuff is a free weekly newsletter. If you’d like to create reciprocity for my work and also access my monthly journaling guide and occasional audio recordings, I invite you to become a paid subscriber. Your support means so much. 

Please feel free to share parts of this newsletter that connect with you on social media or send to someone you love.

---

A song I’ve been loving:

Point Lobos on Polaroid film, 2010.

“I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” — Georgia O’Keeffe

My Sister sent me this quote the other day when I shared hesitancy around fully owning and trusting my writing path. It’s a favorite quote of mine — one that has been so deeply true my whole life and one that holds the kind of energy I’ve been cultivating lately.

Almost everything I’ve ever done that I consider important or transformative has been done afraid, without knowing what the outcome will be, with nothing but trust in what is possible and a willingness to embrace the unknown. I was terrified when I sent a message to a stranger on Ancestry.com to see if they were my biological sister (she was — the one who sent me that quote the other day), and I did it anyway, and it changed everything. I was terrified to start graduate school and did it anyway. I was terrified to write a book and did it anyway. I was terrified to start this Substack and did it anyway. I was terrified to tell the truth, to confront my own pain, to start fully feeling joy, to set boundaries, to cultivate a practice of self-compassion, to open a private practice, to let go, to hold on, to trust love, to go on solo road trips, to become a mother… I could go on… but I did it anyway. And I keep doing it anyway. Terrified, sometimes trembling, knees wobbly and doubt swirling and still, doing it.

We often wait for something we don’t even know will come. We wait for certainty or more confidence, for fear to dissipate or self-assurance to deepen, for the perfect circumstances and the best timing and the most ideal of situations before we go after what we want. We wait until we feel 100% certain or in complete control before we even admit our longings to ourselves, before we take action, before we show up to what we’re called to, before we let ourselves be seen, before we share our art or our heart, before we do the things we want to do in this lifetime. And the truth is, those things might never come. They might not happen in the way we think they need to. They might not end up looking how we think they should.

And… we can slowly practice letting go of needing those perfect circumstances, of needing to fully believe in ourselves, of needing certainty on what the outcome will be, of needing control over how it all goes… and choose to show up anyway. We can be trembling and press send anyway. We can be terrified and do the thing, and be the person we want to be, and share the art we have to share, and make the choices we need to make, and live the life we want to live, imperfectly and maybe not fully but to the best of our abilities, one small moment at a time.

I am not perfect at taking this advice — or any of my own advice, really. There are still lots of things I haven’t yet done because I’m afraid. I haven’t taught classes on zoom, even though I’ve had a thousand ideas. I haven’t done workshops, even though I have literal entire slide decks ready to go. I haven’t fully shown up for the work I do, even though I’ve been told countless times how impactful it is. I haven’t started new hobbies, or cultivated new friendships, or gone new places out of fear of what could go wrong, fear of it not working out, fear of saying or doing the wrong thing… out of fear.

Lately, though, I’ve been trying to return to this practice of doing it anyway. I’m practicing trusting myself to be with the outcome instead of worrying about what it is. I’m practicing trusting myself to be with the grief instead of worrying about what I could lose. I’m practicing trusting myself to be with the rejection instead of worrying about if someone doesn’t like what I do, or doesn’t like what I share, or doesn’t like me. I’m practicing letting myself be with the discomfort of staying committed to what matters to me instead of worrying about what the discomfort means.

This week has been harder than the last. And to be transparent, I didn’t want to write today’s newsletter after sharing about hope, fullness, and goodness returning in last week’s letter. I didn’t want to seem like a fraud, or pretend like I’m still feeling that buzz and upswing. I didn’t want to admit the upswing has taken a downswing, as if that isn’t just part of the ebb and flow we so often speak of. I didn’t want to come up with some wise lesson from my experience, or figure out how to turn a simple story from my week into an inspiring and universal understanding. I didn’t want to do any of it. I’m afraid of not having something incredibly cohesive and beautiful to say. And I’m afraid of saying things in a way that doesn’t fully articulate what I mean.

And I’m doing it anyway.

And now that I’m in it, I’m so glad I’m doing it anyway. I’m glad I’m pushing past the part of me that thinks everything needs to be just right in order to show up. I’m glad I’m noticing the inner narrative telling me I should have just left it at the universal part and left out what’s real and instead, I’m remembering not all our narratives are true (hi, I wrote a whole book about it). I’m glad I’m letting myself be a human and not a Nourishing Essay Machine, or someone who is above what we’re all trying to figure out. I’m glad I’m committed to my practice, devoted to my writing, dedicated to showing up in the ritual of putting words onto a blank page and making something out of nothing, making meaning out of humanity, making sense of what doesn’t always make sense. I’m glad I’m doing it anyway — that I’m not waiting until things are better or more “flow”-y before I sit down and write.

This practice of writing my Sunday Letters has been an incredible gift in moving against my own doubts when they arise, feeling the fear of saying things out loud and showing up anyway, pushing past the desire to be for everyone and instead just saying what’s real, knowing it will find those who may need it. It’s been a teacher in not always feeling capable yet always somehow getting it done — not always feeling inspired yet always figuring out how to dig deeper into the beauty within me, even when I forget it — not always knowing what to say or how to say it, yet always finding exactly what it is I needed to say — imperfectly but honestly, wobbly but surely.

I long thought I needed to figure everything out and have all my shit together before I could share my writing online, before I could press the send button, before I could consider myself a writer, before I could take it seriously, before I could pursue what I felt called to. I still occasionally doubt I know or have experienced enough to be doing this — that I should be more, or better. But god, it feels good to do it anyway — sometimes, afraid, sometimes uncertain, yet always devoted to my path.

Cheers, from my morning coffee to yours, to showing up when we’re called to.
Cheers to trusting our gifts, even when our knees wobble.
Cheers to staying committed to what matters, even when abandoning it feels safer.
Cheers to diving in, even when staying on the sidelines feels less scary.
Cheers to doing the thing, saying the thing, sharing the thing.
Cheers to “getting it right” not being a requirement to doing it — to trying.
Cheers to not needing the perfect circumstances before we start.
Cheers to being terrified and doing it anyway.

I’m scared and I’m here. And I’m really glad I’m here.

△ This book, coming out on Tuesday!

△ This poem:

△ Learning more about women in Iran

△ I’ve been making this a lot lately and it’s so simple & delicious

△ Technology can make your relationships shallower

△ This playlist:

△ I changed everything. Now what?

△ These pebbles I was awed by yesterday at Schoolhouse Beach on the Sonoma Coast:

△ Little Rituals

△ Empty space. Space where I just sit, without filling it with a song or a phone or a book or a podcast. Space where I am just there, with myself, willing to face what arises, willing to trust myself to not need the escape.

Happy Full Moon, everyone.

With care,
Lisa