How Did I Get Here?

I’ve been putting this off for a week, this thing I’m supposed to do. This little huge thing, writing a blog post. What should I write about, will anyone be interested, how long should it be, do I really have anything important to say, will this require me to break my poker face?

​That last question is what really caught my attention and made me realize what the problem is. I am worried about writing this blog post and any number of other posts because I don’t like showing the world who I am. At all. I have what might be the world’s best poker face, rightfully earned, and to write anything personal that the world can see feels like a monumental threat. I did not grow up in a world where revealing who I was and what I needed was met with celebration, or a world where sharing how I felt resulted in anything less than ridicule.

So I learned how to have the world’s best poker face to keep me as safe as I could. Even now, I struggle with showing my emotions and letting the world see what is going on under the flat face. Sometimes I think I am smiling but I’m not, and it’s weird when someone lets me know that. The unexpected downside of walking around with a poker face is it got inside me and shut off how I actually feel, and limited what I think I deserve in life.

 This year, after so many years of wishing life could be different, after years of telling myself I had it good enough and not to make any waves, I decided I needed to make a change. I decided to start the business I wanted so I could try help people in a way that makes sense to me, and that has felt pretty exciting. BUT. Wow it also feels like a monumental threat. I have to show up and be me in order to do the work I know I am supposed to do.

So here I am, trying to live out loud as the person I want to be, even when I don’t quite feel it , rather than the wounded kid still hiding behind my poker face. She kept me safe when I needed it but can’t help me now.

​Hello world, nice to meet you.