letting go
This #31daysofscarystuff exercise has been a great one for me. Looking at fear in the face rather than avoiding the situations that make me fearful has turned my vision of most of my ridiculous fears into a tiny kitten rather than the gaping maw of a people-eating mountain lion. Admittedly, I’m still terrified of mountain lions in reality, having had my fair share of encounters on the trails, but I like this metaphor. Fear as a “vewy scawy” kitten. I can handle kittens.
Confession: I skipped my day 15 post yesterday. It was partly out of laziness, but also partly out of a bit of burnout and just needing a bit of a break of “facing it all head-on.” Today, however, I think I felt like addressing a fear that warrants two posts, so maybe this makes up for yesterday? (Or maybe I’m just giving myself an easy out?) It’s a biggie in any case, so here goes.
Day 16: I have a huge fear of letting go.
I think most of us hold this fear. We fear letting go of comfort. Letting go of our pasts. Letting go of our traumas completely, and hanging onto the righteous anger instead of channeling it in a more productive way. Letting go of situations or relationships that aren’t optimal for us - but they’re routine and familiar. Letting go of jobs and striking it out on our own. (I know a LOT about that topic.) For me, letting go of my family of origin. Letting go of my old career path in sound, theatre, music.
New is scary. Unknown is scary.
For me, in my past - what I call now call my Life 1.0 - I found the definition of who I was in terms of what I did. I’ve been slowly letting go of that identify, that equating “I do” with “I am.” I fully understand why and how that paradigm came to be, given my family background in childhood. Accomplishments equated to being seen. Love was earned; it never just was as a default state of being. As a result, I personally became obsessed with accomplishing things - preferably big things - in order to feel like I even existed. Talk about a recipe for neurosis and unrelenting stress!
Workstation - and necessary coffee - in NYC, October 16, 2017
Instagram just told me that two years ago today, I was in New York City, working as a sound designer for a pretty well-known theatre company. My name was on a legitimate NYC Playbill, and that was awfully cool. I felt like I had done something, simply by being asked to be there. And you know what? It was one of the worst professional experiences I ever had. I won’t really go into the why, but I will fully own that part of it was due to my own attitude. I was exhausted. I had moved three times within a year, and had uprooted from one coast to the other. I had opened a new business the month before. Financially speaking, things were a little unsettled, to say the least. And for the Type-A type that I am, it was terrifying.
I had no business taking on a gig like that in such a stressful moment, but there I was - going for the status. (I certainly wasn’t going for the excellent pay - the pay was crap given the amount of time required.) Going for the billing. Going for the accomplishment, even though I honestly somewhat grown out of wanting to even work in theatre and I lacked the endurance to sit through 16-18 hours of tech rehearsals. I was definitely the weak link in the design staff on that production; I’ll admit it.
I simply couldn’t let go of what I did - being a sound designer for a good 17 years or so.
I couldn’t let go of that identity and that accomplishment.
I couldn’t get rid of the feeling like “I have to do something big and get a good credit” in order to be a valid person.
Writing this, admitting it, feels raw and terrifying.
I still, to this day, talk about what I used to do frequently. I used to play in bands and toured a bit. I used to write music for the theatre and traveled all over the place doing so. I used to sing opera. I used to be a professor. I used to blah blah blah. I’m honestly sick of hearing my own stories, as entertaining and ridiculous as some of them are.
Who I am now is much more important than what I used to do. Who YOU are now is much more important than what you do. I have a tendency to use my “used to-s” as a way to beat myself up - like I’m not accomplishing enough or something ridiculous like that - instead of looking in the mirror, and seeing that I’m actually a pretty cool person to be with, regardless of anything I do on a career level.
I’ve found that if I continue to let the past rule the present, I’m missing out on opportunities staring at me in the face. I’m missing out on new friends. I’m missing out on the moment. I’m missing out on being open, because I’m too defined by the “I do this, not that” crap. I’ve always done this that way, not this way, so I won’t accomplish something major and it won’t be valid. Yikes, right?
I’m not sure if anyone reads my posts on social media or not. If you do, I hope you find some points to be helpful or interesting. This month has been the perfectly timed experiment of growth for me as I embrace my Life 2.0 persona fully, a persona of I am, rather than I do. This person enjoys the moment for what it is, not for what it could lead to in terms of external validation or credit.