Showing up when you don’t feel like it is something I’ve struggled with much of my life. I was that kid who after being dropped off at school, walked back home to watch Days of Our Lives, choosing to cut school to watch soap operas.
There’s an inner rebel inside me that wants to do anything but. Yet as an adult, a parent, a person yearning to write, earn money for myself and my family, and stay healthy mentally and physically, I’m learning that “showing up” for yourself is key.
Whether you’re showing up on your own blog because you committed to a 30-day writing challenge to publish every day or show up to work out at the gym, it’s all working that perseverance muscle.
In what areas in life do you find it hard to show up?
To be honest, I spontaneously picked this topic because I almost talked myself out of showing up here today after a 23-day streak. That voice inside me that tries to protect me, my inner child who I call “Mom-So” (for mom and society), often whispers in my ear to “take it easy,” “give up,” or “eat or drink all the things that make me feel bad.” It tells me “it’s okay to spend money”, to “miss the gym because you’re too tired,” that I’m “not enough.” The voice is quick to blame and shame myself and others.
But today I heard that voice and just noticed it. I opened up this page and I began to type. I had no idea what I would write here, but once I allowed myself to simply show up, the words began to flow.
I love this quote from Flannery O’ Connor: “I write to discover what I know.”
Writing depends on trust. Showing up to write is an act of faith. You trust that you’ll manifest something. You trust that what comes out of you will be good enough. And even if it isn’t what you had hoped, you can always go back and edit. Oftentimes, I show up to write, and end up unraveling knots I didn’t even know were long-buried, just begging to be excavated, brought back up the surface to work with again that brings about relief and release.
That often happens when I’m taking long winding slow walks. Some problem or idea would identify itself, especially if I’m listening to sad songs. But by the end of the walk, I’ll have re-imagined the problem, like solving a side of a Rubics Cube, getting closer to the bigger picture of the puzzle to be solved. Whether it’s a relationship issue or a writing issue, showing up on the blank page, or on a dirt path, helps to figure out what I really think, what possibilities can potentially manifest.
You know what?
I’m really glad I showed up.
Because it feels good. Showing up for yourself, each time you do it, you’re rewiring your brain. You’re creating new pathways. Dopamine hits like Pac-Man eating dots.
Even if you don’t feel like it, the trick is that by simply showing up, you begin to feel like doing it. And like now, sometimes you can’t even make yourself stop.
And you know what else? You’re teaching yourself that you are always more than enough. Even if you don’t know what to write, something will appear, the longer you let yourself stay.
Keep showing up!
