Comparison wiped me out yesterday. 

Gut punched me & poked where it hurt. 

I can sit so aware and confident in who I am and my gifts most days and then one little thing triggers off this insecurity alarm and it is a SPIRAL.

The dramatics begin,

“I might as well figure out what else I’m going to do with my life because this is pointless now.”

“I’m just going to add to the noise of everything else”

“I’m not contributing anything special” 

Just you know all the dumpster fire of lies and shaming that come for blood when you’re in a really low space. 

My fear of imposter syndrome has made friends with my anxiety & they both have been doing a little dance with me in the night, weaving in out of my dreams keeping me from fully resting. 

This has been my whole week and I need to speak it and call it out because I am releasing the power from it that no longer serves me. I am unraveling myself from its stronghold and choosing to step forward. 

My sweet friend Stacy said to me this morning, “Nothing is happening to your right or left,  everything is forward!”

And I’ve been meditating on that deeply. 

I was reading an email by Author and speaker Sarah Bessey this morning which she calls, “Field Notes” and she talked about the joy of being simply being creators of something vs. producers and consumers. 

She shares this quote by Kurt Vonnegut where he says, “They [the arts] are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

She then ends the email with saying,

“I’ve stopped asking whether or not anyone needs my writing or my knitting. Because I need it. I do it because I was made to it, because it makes me feel fully alive to do it. Because I’m working out what God has already worked in. Because I believe even a knitting pattern brings glory to God. Because this life was redeemed by Jesus and this is a bit of redemption right now. It’s a bit of beauty and wholeness, an act of discipleship to Creator, a resistance of professionalization and commercialization to simply take time to participate in the wonder of stepping back to pronounce something as entirely good. Because we were made by Creator who delights in pine trees and primroses, people and purling.”

My passion and my work have long coincided as I embark into almost year six of being a full time Poet, Speaker, Author and digital storyteller. And so there are moments like last night, like this week where I have to realign my intentions again and come back to why I do this in the first. I speak, I write, I produce content because I strongly believe I was made to. At first these words, these stages were for maybe 10-30 people here and there and then I grew, the stages and platforms became bigger and somedays so did my insecurity in believing I belonged there. And then just when I thought I’ve done something monumental, another comes along and breaks the glass ceiling thereafter and I feel weighted with not feeling purposed or significant (the grief of an enneagram four). And it’s usually then at that point that I need to reassess again and remember it was never about the platform or the reach, it was always that the words simply got their chance to breathe, to exist, to touch whoever comes in contact.

When comparison comes wading in, when the imposter syndrome tries to shove a mirror in your face, when the anxiety for not being or doing enough, not showing up “seen enough” gut punches you— remember your why.

This is not advice. I’m not trying to self help you, I am speaking it over myself.

Remember your why, remember the intentions of why you create, write, speak and show up in the first place. 

Remember the Creator who created you uniquely and on purpose and filled you with all the wisdom and insight you need to create what you’ve been designed to create in this world. 

Remember that you matter too. That your gifts matter too.

That there is more space at the table even when it seems very small. Even when it seems as though others have already broken the glass ceiling and you just get to the sloppy seconds of mosying up it behind their lead. Remember that you have broken glass ceilings before you and you will time and time again.

Create.

Make the things.

Show up not because there’s going to be an arena of applause or a prize at the end but because you know with everything inside of you that you’re made to. Because it brings you joy, because creating something with your own two hands and looking back to say “look what we have done” is a reward all in itself. 

Sometimes not always the matter of, “staying in our own lane” when comparison strikes but remembering that while in the same lane- the destinations are different. 

Remember where you’re going and why you’re going.