I have posted several times recently that I feel a little lost. Everything that was known in my life, now is in a state of flux...and like most human beings, I don’t handle the flux all that well.
But I think I have the reason I am having a hard time. It is lack of honesty about how I really feel about all the changes and being all unspoken has resulted in me being afraid to own that which is mine to own...
I am lacking the ability to appropriately value myself.
Ok, there it is.
My big, awful, ugly truth.
This isn’t new. Lifelong issue really.
But starting a new business where I need to promote myself, I need to talk about myself, I need to “sell” me and my skills in order to make this whole business thing work...has left me in this place of feeling caught. Stuck even. Lashed between my need to move forward while promoting myself and this complete discomfort in doing so.
I can’t do the videos of myself. It makes me cringe and hate on me. I know that is what the world is all about today. But I just haven’t been able to do it. And I am suffering because of it.
So what do I do?
I believe I have the skills that can help others navigate the stormy seas of separation and divorce. I have done it for almost 28 years. I have been told that I have helped people and have really made a difference.
GREAT! AMAZING!
And if THEY say it, then that is wonderful. But I don’t want to have to say it. I don’t want to talk about myself...I do not want to say the things that I have to say to get someone to hire me. I want people to know me, but I don’t want to promote or really talk about me at all.
And the clients that I have, I haven’t really had to talk about me. Others have talked about me and then I sold the concept, the skills that would help them get to the other side of all this bullshit divorcing crap. I like it that way. I talk about the skills and results, they believe I can help. Win/Win.
But I need more business than just referrals from the people who know me. I need to gather up business from strangers, people who do not know me at all and that is going to require me to sell myself. As a person, as a coach, as a mediator. And this is where this whole valuing myself comes to a grinding halt.
I think all beings have worth and are basically good. I think that I am good just because I am alive. I think you are good just because you are here, breathing in and out. Now, liking all of you is a totally other concept which I will just leave right here.
I am just not comfortable shamelessly promoting myself. And while I can see that I have skills and knowledge that can really assist people in their passage through the darkened hallways of marriages and relationships gone bad, I seem to have some fundamental core beliefs that are getting in the way. And that all comes down to my own beliefs about my value.
It isn’t that I feel like I lack the value. I just don’t want to have to convince you that I do...but how would you know if I didn’t tell you? And this is where it all blows up.
I am not sure how to get over this and it has paralyzed me. Truly. And I have to get over it because I need to work and earn money to support my family. I know I can do this but I think that I needed to get honest about the thing that I really didn’t want to tell you which is I am afraid.
Not of you. But of myself. That I will fail. Or perhaps, moreover it is that I am afraid that I will succeed. I didn’t used to feel this way. I started my own law firm, right out of law school (I knew absolutely NOTHING) and never one time did I worry about failing or succeeding. I just fucking did it.
But I lack that hutzpah right now. I lack the arrogance and zest of youth. I am not sure exactly, yet anyway, of what I am afraid. I just, today, am owning that I am. I am afraid to dedicate time and effort to an endeavor solely my own.
I have complete confidence that I can build the fuck out of someone else’s business. But my own, that is where I falter. It is embarrassing to admit. I feel ashamed and fraudulent.
I am entering a profession where my job is to help others through a hard time, and I can’t even do that for myself. I feel like a hypocrite and no one likes that, most especially me.
So I am just going to own that I feel this way. That I am ashamed and afraid and pray that maybe this will at least be a beginning of me getting out of my way.
It is my life and me and God have done a pretty amazing job so far. My job is footwork, God’s job is results. I do the work and God takes care of whether this works out or not. That is always been the deal. So this fear and shame and paralysis is really showing that I do not trust. I am lacking in faith, first in myself and fundamentally in God.
So today I am telling you the truth that while I have achieved a great deal of success (more than my share for sure) today I am just a frightened pile of human goo that can’t seem to move beyond the confines of my own limited perspective...
And I pray that by owning my dirty little secret, I can get the fuck out of my own way and move the fuck forward. Building my business, marketing myself so that I can help people. Because I really do believe that it isn’t about me. I am just a vehicle. I am just a messenger. Designed and groomed to be of maximum service to those about me. This is why I got this life, this is why I am here, sober, living and breathing and doing all the things. And I owe it to myself, you and to whatever benevolence moves us all forward, to do my very best. And I guess for me, it starts with me owning that I have not been doing that on any front. I have let fear of rejection, failure and success hold me back and that stops now.
May we all take whatever next step is in our path and trust that we will always be taken care of, right action following right action...one step, and day, at a time.
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