Yeah, that's been me. The last few weeks have felt like a series of Unfortunate Events. This post isn't going to be all happy and fuzzy, and it doesn't really serve any point other than to allow me to whine (something we all need to do occasionally). It's going to be long (probably epic long) but I also think it's going to be very needed. When people come to me with problems, one of the things that I recommend is writing it all out. So here's my attempt. Also further proof that no one has it together all of the time!
Last month, right around my birthday, I wrote a blog post about how I felt like I had been trying on different mantles in an effort to discover who I really wanted to be, both personally and blog-wise. When I started Blessing Manifesting at the beginning of 2011, I was in the midst of a huge transformation. I was going from a self-loathing, verbally-abusive, drama-inciting, bitch to something better. It turned out I was trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. Oh don't get me wrong, I'm no longer those things, but I felt like I had to go to the extreme. I had to be this super-mindful, perfect being of light, love, and good intentions. I had to meditate, I wasn't allowed to be mad, I wasn't allowed to be hurt,
I had to be this robot who only felt and experienced good things because only then would I be a good person.
I'm an all-in kind of girl, I rarely do things half-assed. After a few months of trying to be those things, I realized that it wasn't any fun, it wasn't nourishing to my passionate Leo-esque nature, and at the end of the day, it was boring. So at the beginning of this year, I made the decision to be me, and I was, and it felt awesome. I still hadn't figured out how to blog from that place of me-ness. I felt like being in the self-help, self-love, field, people expected me to be a certain way, have a certain attitude, and basically, be all light, love, and fluffiness. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)
I found myself censoring how I wrote, trying to make it 'professional', trying to make it fit into this niche. Telling myself that funniness wasn't appropriate. I felt embarrassed to let people know that I play World of Warcraft and read romance novels, because I'm not 'supposed to'. I'm supposed to do meaningful things, I'm supposed to do big important things, like go on retreats, and travel, and be all zen all of the time. (I know this is all my twisted perception, I've never denied being a loon)
A few days after my b-day this year I wrote in my newsletter about how I was done with holding back, I was going to be funny and goofy and dorky and I was going to be *more* of who I am. You've always seen real Dominee, just not all of her. So I wrote posts about my favorite TV show Lost and about Lord of the Rings and I used the phrase "Quite yer bitchin'" in a blog post, and it all felt good, and real and me, and I felt so nervous, so fearful that I was going to be judged and people were going to decide I just wasn't their cup 'o tea.
Then I took my first stumble.
I had a well-meaning reader send me an e-mail telling me that they thought that I was mis-guided on what my public persona should be. That I have my goofy, funny side, but it's not my true strength or my true essence, it was just another trying-on, another cloak to wear for a time until I wised up to who I really was. That I was very multi-faceted so it might be hard for me to see my true self. They said that they believed that I was serious, deep thinking and had a light-filled sensitivity to joy. That my greatest asset was my kindness and when I brought that to my work then it would be authentic.
To be honest that e-mail pissed me off and hurt me more than anything had done in a very long time.
I felt like I was being judged, I felt like I was being criticized, I felt like I was being told that I wasn't smart enough to know my own self, that I wasn't good enough being me. It felt like a stranger had come up to me on the street and said "Hey you, *this* is how you should be." I know it shouldn't have bothered me, but I had just made this big step in embracing my me-ness, and here was someone telling me that it wasn't really *me*. I felt like I was now coming across as fake, un-authentic, not funny at all, and a loser. Is kindness one of my greatest assets? Absolutely! I believe that's something that I've always shown, acknowledged, embraced, and put into my work, so I felt so confused as to why someone felt the need to point out what I already knew that I was. Wasn't it already showing? It was like one of my fears coming true, how the public sees me vs. how I see me not being the same thing.
After a lot of work and obsessive thinking, I finally let it go, saw the message in the helpful spirit that it was intended, and moved on. At the time, I was spending lots of time working on my latest project, Inner Journeys, so I turned my attention back to that. I was having a terrible time at the pays-the-bills job, just general crabbiness and discontentment, so I called in sick for three days (shhh.... that's our little secret), just to give myself a bit of a break. All three days I spent working on the Inner Journeys, I had 56 e-mails to design and put together, and honestly it was exhausting but it was good times. When I was done
I decided to do beta-testing for the first time, this created my second stumble.
If you've subscribed to the newsletter then you know about the Guinea Pig Clause, which basically means when I launch new things I extend an offer for a few people to try them out so that I can get some feedback. I'd never done it before, but figured it was win-win, after all, a few people would get to try my stuff for free, which is meant to create a positive difference, and I would get some much needed feedback, as well as a few testimonials.
I had tons of people offer (for which I was so grateful!) and I picked seven to beta-test for me and answer a 5 question survey at the end as well as give me a testimonial if they felt called to do so.
Only one person sent a testimonial and a total of three people filled out the survey. I started thinking that I must really suck. That nothing I do makes a notable difference to anyone, you know how that goes... Then launch day happened and I sent out an e-mail to the newsletter folks and I had 11 people unsubscribe from the newsletter that morning. On top of that, there wasn't much interest in the Inner Journeys anyway, and I took it as another sign that I was just fooling myself by thinking that I'm a life changer. Basically my attitude sucked, I'll admit it.
I also suffer from Post-Project-Blues which means whenever I launch something, I get depressed afterwards. It's just part of my spiral, something I'm used to, and something that I've come to expect. I expend a lot of energy and time working on projects and then when I'm done, there's this bit of emptiness and uncomfortable-ness and exhaustion surrounding it. This time I was smart and took five days off of the pays-the-bills job a few days after the launch, just to have time for myself. Post-Project-Blues along with everything else that was going on in my head did not a happy-me make.
So I threw up my arms and walked away.
From the start of Blessing Manifesting, I've had highs and lows, I've had moments of doubt, I've wavered, but I usually bounce back fairly quickly, and even if it takes a few days, I still work during those days, I write blog posts, I still reply to comments, answer e-mails, set up posts on social media, all of the day-to-day things that keep things running smoothly.
This time, I did absolutely nothing.
I watched lots of episodes of Sailor Moon, my favorite childhood anime. I bought three romance novels and spent lots of time in bed reading. I got the Sims 3: Supernatural expansion and spent time making families of fairies, werewolves, and vampires. I played World of Warcraft and ate lots of ice cream.
And then I missed this. And I realized what was wrong. I was letting my ego get in the way. My job is not to be popular, my job is not to make massive amounts of moolah, my job is to show up, put my words out there, and hope that they find the people that they need to at the times that they need to.
Nothing else matters. No one else says what I say in the way that I say it. No one does what I do in the way that I do it. There's something infinitely special about that. What I do, in the truest form that I do it, honestly nourishes me in a way that nothing ever has before.
So I'm getting back on the horse.
I am doing "the work". It makes my Inner Wise Woman happy, it gives her the space to speak, to sing her song, to be divine.
So here I am, showing up. I did some Autumn Cleaning to the website, gave it some lovin's, fixed it up a bit, and I feel good about it. I hope that you do too. If you read through all of this, you are awesome and I owe you a cookie. /Brain vomit over.
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