Shine

Embracing the Fear of Visibility

Filled with emptiness,
emptied of fullness.
Can’t quite put my finger
on what’s missing.

It’s not love,
nor closeness.
For my heart is safely held
in his courageous arms.

It’s not wonder,
nor commitment.
For my mind and body
are dedicated to this beautiful life.

What is it
that has me feel,
has me think,
has me desire to shrink?

Has me cry,
has me hide,
has me open up wide
and bellow on my knees?

Has me cry,
I ask myself why?

What is it?
Why is it?

That I’m so afraid to shine?

I wrote this poem back in February 2018. It was a time in my life when I felt very lost and empty.

It's an interesting time for me to find that piece of writing because I have just discovered the reason why I have been afraid to shine.

I felt stuck in a chrysalis for many years—basically my whole life.

I spoke with a friend today about this idea of the chrysalis and she shared with me that she too felt like she was stuck in a chrysalis and had been for 10 years.

We joked about it being some kind of babushka chrysalis, like the Russian dolls that open out into smaller and smaller versions of themselves.

Like the tiniest Babushka doll, I’ve thought I was escaping the chrysalis many times over the years, only to realise there was yet another level, another layer of the chrysalis to cut through. 🦋

And even though I wrote that poem in 2018. I still in many ways feel as though I’m at the same spot. But I'm not. I’ve experienced immense growth, expansion, and evolution.

But sometimes it feels like we are stuck.

Sometimes it feels like we're not getting anywhere. I like to think of it as a spiral.

Sometimes I find myself bumping up against what I perceive to be the same challenges over and over and over again. But they're not.

What they are is, if you imagine a spiral going up, up, up into the sky, twisting and turning its way up. When that spiral hits the same spot, just a little higher, it's another octave of that challenge. We have new beliefs, new thinking, and new skills to encounter that challenge.

We've uncovered new patterns and trauma and we're able to look at it with different eyes. These obstacles and events come across our path in different ways for different reasons.

For me, it's been really easy to fall into the trap of thinking I haven't made any growth, and that I haven't expanded when I bump up against what I perceive to be the same thing.

Putting myself out there in the world. Unapologetically sharing who I am, what I believe in, what lights me up, and what I stand against has been so hard for me.

This newsletter and its accompanying podcast are one of the ways that I'm overcoming that. That's scary because I’m stepping into the arena. I’m allowing other people to judge me. But I'm not writing or recording this for anyone else but myself.

It's part of my journey to share this. Because it is my time to shine.

Just this week I was talking with Brendan, my husband, about some of the realisations I've been unpacking about my childhood programming.

Some of it is very deep and fresh. I will be sharing that in more newsletters and podcasts to come. But in the meantime, I'm grappling with the fact that the reality inside my mind throughout the last 39 years of my life has been warped.

My idea of myself hasn't been one that would allow me to shine because my attention was placed elsewhere. I've been looking out for other people, scared to show up. I've been hiding. I've made myself invisible. And for so long, I couldn't put a finger on why.

That's why I wrote about it in 2018 because when I looked at my life on paper, I felt happy. I felt put together. I had a loving husband (and still do). We’re dedicated to each other. I'm curious. I love the world. Then, I didn't have much money. But I was happy.

You would've looked at me and said I was happy. But there was just this something inside of me that had me wanting to shrink all the time. I've experienced that my whole life right up until this week.

And now, today, on the day I cracked open another layer of the chrysalis, I also found this poem from six years ago in which I was asking the same questions. I felt like that was a really beautiful synchronicity to share with you.

I'll share more about exactly what I uncovered this week with you in more episodes. Not for anyone else, but just for me. Because it is my time to shine.

Two years ago, I unconsciously decided to not allow myself to live so I could allow someone else to.

That experiment failed and had me realise that, that didn't help me either. So now it's my time to live. It's my time to shine. It's my time to share. And I hope you enjoy reading and following my journey.

I don't want to be invisible anymore. I don't want to be unseen. I don't want to live for other people. I don't want to be inside an endless babushka chrysalis that I can't find my way out of.

I want to fly. And I'm ready to fly.

So thanks for being here and reading. If it resonates, leave a comment and join in on the conversation.

Aimee

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