Into the Unknown

As I have been planning to begin this blog and business, my mindset has required continual reset. Having a quiet dream that you keep so very close to your heart is pretty common, I imagine. But holding that dream out to the big wide world is something else entirely. Showing up and opening up feels pretty scary. Jump-out-of-an-airplane level scary. Much easier to stay in a quiet comfortable world where I know all the rules and there are no obvious risks.

So as a girl who is totally motivated by music, of course I made myself a playlist and put it on repeat to help stay in a positive headspace. The hilarious thing is that most of it comes directly from kid’s movies. And I don’t have any kids at home I can blame it on. 

And guess what…all those lessons we have been trying to teach our kids? Apparently they apply to adults too. Shocking, I know.

Showing up &

opening up feels pretty scary.

Jump-out-of-an-airplane scary.

If you are anything like me, (which I’m guessing you are unless you happen to be Rachel Hollis) you, too, have a dream with a little whisper in your ear. C’mon…YOU KNOW THE ONE. It’s that one that says there is something else you are meant to do. Something else you are meant to give. It might be small & precious or a giant, outrageous thing. Maybe you don’t know exactly what it would look like, it is just a feeling. That’s right, friend. You are not the Lone Ranger in this secret dreamland.

That annoying little whisper is persistent, even when you give it no attention whatsoever, sort of like a kid who wants permission right-this-minute for a sleepover.  It may simmer down completely for a season or two while life keeps you busy with kids or husbands or careers or parents or any combination thereof.

But one day there it is again, poking you in the side, saying, Hey,sister. We are NOT done here.

To follow that quiet dream feels like a huge risk. To bring it out into the open feels like an invitation to rejection, opinions, doubters and haters. What if someone thinks it’s silly? Thinks I am too big for my britches? That I am taking time away from something or someone that relies on me? What if someone tells me it is a waste of time? All of these are very real possibilities. Somehow the people we love most have the greatest power to crush our quiet dreams with careless words or doubts.

You become more aware of where you have chosen to be brave.

Or not.

When I was younger I always felt like there was SO much time ahead. The problem with hitting mid-life is that you suddenly become hyper aware of the time left, kindof like when you were a teenager and you suddenly glanced at the clock and saw curfew was in 20 minutes.

You become more aware of how you have spent your life up to this point, where you have chosen to be brave. Or not. And you know in your bones that the curtain just went up on the second act…if you don’t want to hit the end of the show with regrets or things left undone you better put on your big girl pants and get going.

So here we are. With quiet, annoyingly persistent dreams and an awareness that the time is no longer infinite to do all the things.  Terrified out of our minds that someone is going to laugh or roll their eyes or make some snide comment about how we really aren’t qualified to do this thing.

But we are putting the big girl pants on in spite of all that. We are digging down deep and finding some measure of courage because we don’t want to get to the end with regrets or what ifs.

We can do it together. I’ll even go first.  And you can share my amazing (IMO) playlist. Let’s put it on perpetual repeat. To remind us…

If we go there’s just no telling how far we’ll go.