Chasing Dreams
On Writing, Imposter Syndrome and Negotiating with fear
Hello You,
Grab a coffee, get cosy, I hope these words can find you in a moment of gentleness.
Why bother?
Because right now, there is someone
Out there with
A wound in the exact shape of your words
-Sean Thomas Dougherty
I heard this in the second session of London Writer’s Salon I attended, and it made me smile. It sounded to me like it was saying, what you have to say matters.
We all have that one tiny part of us that does a very good job of convincing us that what we have to say doesn't matter, what we have to offer is insignificant, the ways we want to show up are not not good enough. We’re just voice, one voice in a sea of too many, our thoughts are tiny, irrelevant, it convinces us. A part of that I believe is social conditioning, the idea that we have to be big and shiny and seen in big dramatic ways for what we have to say to matter, and the smaller ways, the one person who carries your words with them, or the one day that is made easier by your thoughts, is not enough. Another part of it, for me, is about being a recovering perfectionist and navigating with past versions of me that have wanted to do things exactly right. The thing about perfectionists is, the reason we fight for perfection tooth and nail, is because somewhere inside us we carry the belief that what we have to offer isn’t enough. I imagine a not so insignificant part of this feeling is also about being a woman, in a society that is tailored to make women small, silent. That has spent decades telling us our voices don’t matter.
Sometime in the last year, and I’m not sure really when (I don’t think it was one moment, more of a silently growing shift that showed itself in a moment), I decided I was going to give this being a writer business a chance. I don’t know what that means for me right now. Does that mean just living a life that holds ample space for my words? Does that mean the weekly container of this newsletter? Does that mean writing a book? (Ofcourse, that is the ultimate secret dream I dreamt as a young girl that I’m too scared of admitting out loud, and yet I just did, in parenthesis, softly, to this screen).
I have piles of journals from when I was young. Those little colourful diaries with locks that weren’t really locks. Leather company notebooks someone would gift one of my parents. Printed spiral notebooks I thought were cute. Pages and pages and pages of stories. Somewhere in my adolescent years of ending every day with “dear diary”, and writing little stories and ballads because my English teach told me to, a dream formed, to be a writer. A book writer. Big dreams, of a young girl.
And yet somewhere in those years, by the time adolescence passed, and university and friends and picking career paths started, that dream was lost. Somewhere along the way (and if we’re really thinking about it, I think it might’ve been a particularly harsh tutor for my first creative writing class), I told myself that I didn’t have what it took to be a real writer, I didn’t even know how people became writers, and my dream was childish. Somewhere in those years, a young girl’s desire to do something because it felt exciting, was replaced by the voice that to this day vets what I’m allowed to do on the basis of how good I am at it.
I went on with my Economics degree, and my Counselling degree, and I forgot all about my little dream, until one day, sometime during the last year, someone asked me, “if you could be anything, what would you be?” A writer, a little voice whispered. The memory of that dream surprised me, it felt so far away. And yet, once I’d seen it, it kept getting louder and louder, demanding space, wanting a chance. And so here I am, writing.
I’m dipping my toes, slowly, tentatively, into the world of writing. With this newsletter, with the many books and podcasts and newsletters on writing as a craft I find myself engaging in, with lists of courses I could take, and most importantly, with permission for my words to take space, on paper, on word docs, in Substack.
Every week, I write a newsletter, some weeks I send it, but a surprising number of weeks, I manage to talk myself out of doing a final round of edit. The list of excuses is endless, but I’m forever taken by surprise by the vulnerability I feel trying this new thing, being a beginner. The way the fear steps in and takes over as I waddle my way into this new thing. I haven’t gotten to the being “good at it” part of this yet, I’m still in beginner waters that feel murky, and that’s where I often find myself freezing.
Every week, as I negotiate with my fear, I am reminded of how stuck we get in the many fears of doing something new; how will this go, what will that mean, how horrible it could feel. We forget how wonderful if might feel, how freeing it might be, to just give ourselves permission. It becomes so much easier to not do the thing, to stay comfortable, to stay safe. And in that safety whole life trajectories, moments of joy, many adventures, sparks of souls are lost.
What if we could do our things lightly? Without them having to carry the weight of the world, the weight of our self worth? What if we could, launch the offering, try the skill, apply for the program, just for that anxious-excited feeling we get every time we think of it, just to give ourselves a chance to find out how it feels.
When you come up against the scary-exciting thing, I ask you to let yourself lean into it, but do so gently, with compassion. Hold space for the scared parts of you, the parts that want to flee so bad. The parts that have learnt to fear the unknown. Let them know it’s okay that they’re scared, and that you can take them on your little adventures with you. That your gut can turn into a knot, and you can learn to breathe through the knot, and let someone hold your hand as you step into your vulnerability.
You don’t need to not be scared, you just need to let yourself feel the fear. The moment you allow the fear, you allow for all the possibilities it brings. You allow yourself to understand it, know it, and negotiate with it. As I write this out, I negotiate with my fear. As I press send, I let myself know it’s okay that I’m scared.
When I hear words across the chaos of a zoom grid, that give me the reassurance I need to send my words into out into the void, with no guarantees of how they will be received, I hold them dear. As I stumble my way through the exciting, terrifying spaces of being a beginner, the voices that hold me, and nudge me along mean the world.
If you like my words, if they land with you, let me know - with a like, or a share, or an email with your thoughts - for nothing more than for this to not feel like a void. The digital space can sometimes swallow our humanness, the vulnerability I sit with on this side of the screen, and the ways this lands with you on that side of the screen can get lost. And so this is me, reaching out in my humanity.
Things I’d like on my wall:
Lisa Olivera’s words finding me at the right time.
I thought about the relief of just being honest instead of trying to be impressive. I thought about how true it feels to write the way I write — to share the way I share. I thought about how I don’t write here to perfect anything but to say the truest thing on Sundays.
Shifting routines, with the shifting seasons. My days are starting later, and ending later. As a night owl, my brain is having a lot of fun working on little projects at 1am.
Watching people journal through countries and time zones with Suleika Jaouad’s 30 days of journalling has felt so beautiful.
This lemon drizzle cake might be my favourite baking experiment to date.
My thoughts are that you are a kindred spirit, and that I can’t help but wonder what your sun moon and rising are 😋