Name The Bullshit

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” -Seneca

If I feel something in the core of me, why can’t I allow it to unfold? Am I so afraid of failure that I shut it down? Am I afraid that if I show up, finally after all this time, I’ll find that I’m just a fraud? That I’ve been fooling myself for three decades?

What do I have to do to prove to myself that I’m good enough?

Can I keep going despite the fear? Can I, instead of trying to eliminate my hesitation and insecurities, just work beside them? Can I co-exist with my shame?

I’ve done it for as long as I can remember but I’ve always had one foot out the door. In fact, I hauled that foot through the mud and the grit to distract myself from the shame I felt for not giving myself 100%. A self-perpetuated cycle with no end in sight.

Here I currently sit with my piano staring at me and I’m feeling it now: a deep desire to connect with myself through music, knowing the piano is a tool in which to do that. Most days, though, I give into my insecurities and become overwhelmed in them. I listen to the asshole in my brain telling me that it’s too difficult, I have no idea what I’m doing and I have no business in trying.

Can you imagine what the world would look like if we all let that fear overcome us?

I become so aggravated when I feel that I’m not being heard or worse, blatantly ignored. The attention that photographs recieve compared to the minuscule feedback that my projects see tells me that my face is more interesting than my honesty, my artistry, my work and my vulnerability. It’s easier to see a nice photo on social media, click a react button and quickly move on. It takes time and an attention span to click a link, read a blog, watch a video, listen to a song or a podcast. The grounding part comes when I’m calm enough to set my ego aside to remind myself that it isn’t about me. I recognize that I can’t blame others for a lack of attention span and I cannot control what anyone cares about. It feels incredibly self-centered to focus on this at all, let alone write about it on a public platform.

How do I break the cycle? We look for validation but when we receive it in a different way than we expect or would prefer, we’re left to assumption.

Assumption has gotten me into a lot of trouble in the past with tendencies to take personal things in which have nothing to do with me. I let confusion and resentment fester until I eventually snap. I do this because I’ve spent so much time ignoring my own needs. Instead of showing up to work through my insecurities, I craft inflamed narratives in my head so I can externalize my fear because lashing out, whether passive-aggressively or overtly, lends to me a skewed semblance of control.

We find a home in the bullshit stories we keep telling ourselves. These lies serve us tea and put us to bed each night. We find comfort in the familiar way they stroke our hair. We wake in the morning, perhaps having forgotten the tales that were whispered into our ears the night before but just like humans do, we subconsciously play out the fabrications and fall into the same pattern that served our ego the day before.

It’s time to break out of it. To call ourselves out on the bullshit. To hold ourselves accountable with integrity. To stop justifying our actions, apathy and negligence. To unveil and unlearn the stories that have been ingrained in us; the tales that have been passed down through generations of bullshit. To unwind trauma, own it as a part of our story and to walk beside the hurt instead of being dragged behind.

But we’ve got to start asking ourselves what that bullshit story is.

If we don’t name it, we can’t change it.