Tuesday 17 April 2018

Health - Putting Yourself Out There

Hello again all, I’m up to 2.5k page views now and I’m amazed by all your support. I’ve just started a facebook page to start to share my content and get it outside of my friendship circle, so a share would be hugely appreciated. Today I’m going to talk about The Fear. Not the Lily Allen song, the fear of putting yourself out there. Allowing yourself to be judged and critiqued. It’s something I’ve always been afraid of as I’m terrified that people will ridicule or otherwise form an assumption of me. I’ve had to push hard to open up and get my stuff out there, putting aside the fear and forging ahead. Here’s a little story about how I made it happen.

I’ve always carried a fear of opening up to strangers, of speaking my thoughts out loud or getting them down on paper. There’s a facet of ‘traditional’ masculinity that says that men should stay strong and quiet and put up barriers. I subscribed to this backward thinking for far too long. I lost sleep worrying, I pushed everything to the back of my mind, I spent hours drinking and smoking and trying to gloss over the dark fear of being judged. I lost too much weight and then gained too much. I was doing it all wrong.

I recently had a set of bad circumstances which left me reeling, I forgot how to communicate like a normal person. I forgot how to listen. I broke hard, the rejection absolutely hollowed me out. I was down to nothing, my back was against the wall and I had no option but to fight my way out or get pulled under. I reassessed everything, I spoke with numerous people from various different viewpoints and came to the conclusion that I needed a release. I’d bottled up all the negativity of the past few years and tried to shoehorn myself into a relationship that would make me forget all of that. SPOILER: It didn’t. I tried too hard, I stifled her and it all fell to pieces.

Off the back of this I learned that I had held myself back for too long, I had turned down opportunities to better myself in order to have an easier life. I had put all my eggs in one basket, relationship, marriage, kids, or bust. I forgot who I really was, what my values were, what my passion is, I’d put myself on the shelf.

This was the catalyst.

I had to do something to heal, to get my head straight, to embrace the passion I’d let slip away, I had to put myself out there. I was fucking terrified. There was one of these stupid social media crazes where you had to post up 10 albums that shaped you over 10 days. I started writing a little bit and people seemed to dig it! The feedback was positive, and I had messages from people saying I should do some more. This was the spark that lit the fire. I opened up. It felt amazing. I started getting my notes app out on my ipad and tapping away for hours. Once I started I couldn’t stop. The pressure release valve had popped and I was venting in a healthy way, using the words as a catharsis. Writing about what I loved helped me stop thinking about what I didn’t.

Obviously writing isn’t going to be that healing force for everyone, it may be art, or sport or sewing, or anything really. But the important message here is not to let the fear get you, open up and do what you love, don’t waste years on bad decisions like I did. Don’t destroy the best things by bringing bad baggage. Find your catalyst and grab the opportunity with both hands. Get out there, and live.


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