I’m Scared to Write on My Blog

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve done absolutely anything with my blog and it’s something that’s been in the back of my mind gnawing at me constantly. I have so many ideas for posts, so many photos I haven’t shared, so many thoughts and feelings that I want to express but I’ve just been so scared.

To sit down and write you have to really show up, be present, and face whatever it is you’re actually feeling, and that’s hard to do. Shit it’s hard enough for me to do that with my own journal sometimes which I don’t plan on anyone else even reading, but then to be vulnerable enough to share with other people feels a hell of a lot scarier. Even writing about topics that aren’t necessarily personal, it still takes courage to share something that you created with the world, no matter what that thing is.

It took awhile from when the idea of starting a blog first came to my mind to when I actually published my first post. So many countless hours of research, planning, problem solving, editing, designing, gathering ideas and inspiration, thinking, dreaming, writing, organizing and editing photos, collecting content, and entire weekends spent trying to problem solve one tiny little thing that I was not willing to give up on until it was fixed. Once I stopped wishing and dreaming and made the decision that I really wanted to start this damn thing I was determined and I was going to figure out how the hell to do it one way or another. Then after putting it out into the world I realized the hardest part isn’t actually starting, it’s continuing.

One of the patterns in my life that has come to my attention in recent years is that I will start something and then when it starts to feel too hard or too vulnerable I start to pull away. Talking to a new therapist for the first time? Easy. Talking to the same therapist on a regular basis for years and actually being willing to open myself up and face all the things that make me want to curl up in a ball and die? Not so easy. This pattern keeps showing up in my life with almost everything I do whether its with making friends, romantic relationships, learning the piano, my workout routine, healing from past traumas, or writing this blog. I start and then there’s something inside me that feels like it’s too risky, too vulnerable, too uncomfortable, too different, too scary, too far outside the depths of the shallow end that’s kept me safe and secure.

And I’m so fucking sick and tired of it. It’s becoming so exhausting allowing this cycle to continue over and over again but then not knowing how to do things any differently because that’s how I’ve been doing it for so long. I don’t have any clear answers as to how to break free from the patterns that keep us feeling stuck but maybe trying to do one little thing a little bit differently than how we’ve been doing it seems like a good start?

If I want to become fluent in a new language I’m going to have to actually practice speaking it and not care about sounding stupid and mispronouncing words. If I want to have deep meaningful relationships I’m going to have to actually allow myself to be seen by people. If I want to have a blog that people read, I’m going to have to actually write and not just sit around thinking about how bad I feel about myself for not writing. What a concept right?

I keep waiting to feel just the right moment, or to take the picture perfect photo, or to have an influx of motivation and inspiration to start sharing on my blog again, but I’m starting to realize that I’ll be waiting around forever for any of that to happen. I put so much work into creating this blog and intended for it to be a place where I can share my experiences, thoughts and feelings through writing and photos and with the hope that someone reading might be able to get something of value out of it. Most importantly I created this blog with the hope that I would get something of value out of it.

I’ll never be able to allow myself to have that if I continuously tell myself what I have to say isn’t important enough to share and I just keep neglecting what it is I deeply want. So let me take a moment to remember what it is I want when it comes to this blog.

I want to have a blog that I love, that I make time for and prioritize, that I don’t allow feelings of fear and unworthiness hold me back from, that I feel safe to be my true authentic self, that I feel free to express myself creatively in any way I please, that allows me to do things I’ve always dreamt of doing, that allows me to practice and improve my writing and photography, that helps others feel seen and not alone in what their experiencing, that helps others feel inspired to do whatever it is their heart and soul is calling them to do, that I feel I can always come to as a place of comfort, and lastly I want to have a blog that makes me feel fulfilled and in alignment with what feels true to who I am.

So if I’m really going to do this thing I’m going to have to continue showing up. Showing up without waiting for the perfect photo of myself standing on top of a mountain in a flowing red dress blowing in the wind, without waiting for my writing to be as good as people who have been writing for years longer than me, without waiting to feel totally confident and unafraid of being judged and criticized by others—because none of that will likely ever happen. I’m still going to hold onto the red dress on a mountaintop idea though.

All that to say I didn’t exactly want my first post in months to be about why I haven’t posted in months but it just felt like what I need to share. I’m sure there will be many more times where I don’t post nearly as much as I would like to and when life just seems to get in the way, but I hope that I don’t allow that to discourage me completely from coming back and recommitting no matter how many times that may be. To anyone who may be reading this I hope you too don’t judge yourself too harshly for not knitting all those beanies you wanted to knit for everyone last Christmas or whatever it is you’re feeling bad about yourself for. We’re all just doing the best we can, lets just take it one day at a time yeah?

I have so many more recent life and travel things to share but that will have to be for another post for another day. So stay tuned!