HAPPY NEW YEAR! I don’t know about you, but I’ve started 2023 diving heart-first into one of my resolutions.
I didn’t plan to. Truth be told, left to my own devices, I probably would’ve done what I have always done: Made just enough progress to make me feel like I had done something but not any real progress. Essentially, enough to fool myself. Picture this: December 31st, 2022. Demi, the über private (some would say, guarded) person, declares that she’s going to be more open, more vulnerable.
You know, show up and let people seeeee her.
I was listening to Bishop TD Jake and he gave a great analogy …Think of yourself as an apple. We have the skin, which we spend a bunch of time (some more than others) trying to make our skin shine and look perfect. We then allow some people to get behind the skin, to the meaty bit. And out of that bunch, we choose a small amount to get to the core.
Yeah, I’ve had a VERY challenging time allowing people to get to the core. Fear of judgement and rejection … the usual.
What we need to keep reminding ourselves is that the core is what holds the stuff that creates orchards.
I go to bed that night, with the excitement and hope that comes with the beginning of a new year.
January 1st: I wake up, begin to implement some of my other resolutions and then I hear my phone bing’ing. It’s a text from the man I’ve been chatting with. A man I quite like. Instant connection. That sort of thing.
The message has an underlying tone of doubt. He makes a comment … more of a statement … about how he has already shared so much and he doesn’t know very much about me. Not even my last name.
I felt an old pattern that wanted to emerge. Defensiveness aka protection.
But instead, I found myself typing out my last name, knowing that he would Google me. What is it about allowing someone to ‘see’ you – I don’t mean with their eyeballs – that scares us? Judgement? Rejection? Not enough-ness? All of that and then some?
As the feeling of fear/overwhelm/vulnerability came over me, I had to consciously choose to sit through it. I had to be mindful not to react from that place.
Sure enough, the feeling dissipated and I sat there feeling pretty proud of myself and feeling what Brené Brown refers to it as a vulnerability hangover.
But I did it! And you know what? It’s made keeping the other promises I made to myself, a whole lot easier. I’m on fire, you guys!
There’s something magical that comes with a New Year. It’s like a springboard – an activator – for our courage.
When you set out to start being the person who you say you want to be, who has the things you want to have and who does the things you say you want to do, you’re going to be given opportunities to step into being that and you can choose to either do things the way you’ve always done them or you can choose to allow yourself to move through the discomfort that comes with expansion. May you always choose the latter.
Be you.