Pushing the Edges

No matter how much growth you've experienced, the edges of your comfort zone are always there, just waiting for you to push past them.

Photo by Julian Paolo Dayag on Unsplash

One of the things I talk about a lot with my clients is the importance of pushing your edge. When you feel that resistance, the sweaty palms, lean in I say. As the brilliant Steven Pressfield wrote in The War of Art - that fear is an indicator of where you need to focus your attention. 

And I wholeheartedly believe it. In fact, I am such a believer that I chose ‘growth and expansion’ as my intentions for the year. So imagine my surprise when all of that came up and smacked me in the face in my attempts to do what is seemingly a simple task: write a post for Substack.

First, a little background. My goal is to write a book about my experience  as a young mom on a quest to discover my passion and purpose. Who I was beyond all the roles I took on - wife, mother, etc - and my decades-long journey back to myself.  I have been coaching clients and posting on Facebook and Instagram, sharing my learnings for a few years now, and have been writing a weekly blog for just over 2 years. Longer if you count the ebb and flow of posts and emails I created when the mood struck. 

When I consider my personal evolution both as a woman in midlife and now as a coach, it seems to me that Substack provides an intuitive next step for me to practice creating content on a regular basis as I expand my reach. On this platform I can continue to build my confidence as I discover my process for doing so. 

In this phase of my growth journey - writing education 101 - I am getting curious. I don’t have an extensive literary background so I am exploring authors that are new to me. Studying their processes and obstacles, soaking them up so that I can select and curate those that resonate - a piece here, a tidbit there - and combine them into my unique recipe for my writing journey.

Fast forward to last week when I signed up for a discussion thread hosted by Substack that engages newbies and veterans alike. It’s where someone like me can learn things like how many times to post or how to build my subscriber base. The discussion is very positive and I love the supportive, communal feel of it. 

I found myself toggling back and forth from the comments to the respective accounts of the contributors so I could see real world examples of the tips they were sharing. While there I could see how many subscribers they had, and the type of content they were posting. 

Taking a look at my profile to see how I could implement some of the tips, I noticed that it had been a week since my last post. I had a couple of pieces I had written, so I picked one and copied and pasted it into my Substack. The one I picked was one I wrote while sitting in my cozy chair, drinking coffee and contemplating the trees outside the window. It was a breezy day and the leaves would flutter in the wind, some falling gently to the ground below. As I so often am, I was enamored with how nature doesn’t seem to care what happened in the past or what may happen in the future and how much we can learn from her. 

As I reread the piece something happened: instead of hearing that gentle intuition that guided me to write the piece, I heard the voices from the thread. Only it wasn’t the kind, supportive voices. No, I had replaced those with the voices in my head - what I imagined them saying after I posted it. 

‘Wow. Clearly a newbie.’

 ‘She posted this? What is this?’ 

‘Who does she think she is thinking she can be a writer?’

Then they started building in cruel intensity:

‘She thinks she can write a book?’

‘She doesn’t have any experience!’

‘She hasn’t been a career journalist and doesn’t even have her MFA!’

‘I’ll bet she can’t even name any of the best, most influential authors of our time!’

Typing furiously I started reworking the piece. It was too short - it needed to be longer. I began adding in descriptions and phrases that didn’t feel like me. I started feeling my throat close up as my voice became overridden by all the negative beliefs and fears. The writing became tortured and angsty. I deleted and inserted and rewrote and went around in circles until finally I had had enough.

I got up from my desk and started walking around my house.

I asked out loud ‘what is happening for me right now?’

The first thing I felt was ‘fuck it’. I don’t need to do this. I’m no good at this. Then Pissy Bridget (my tight lipped, arms crossed 7 year old version of myself) showed up and in her snarkiest tone said -’ screw it. Goody for all of those people who figured it out. I’m happy for them’.

I’ll reject myself before they can do it for me.

That’s when I knew I was in deep. I was riding a tidal wave of decades old programming that - despite my 25+ years of personal growth work - was relentless in its grip. 

I decided to make a video for Instagram (below) at that moment so that I could share what was happening for me in real time.

Giving it voice helped to release some of its power. Rationally I knew exactly what was happening, but emotionally I felt a visceral shock to the system that held me tight for the better part of the day.

I paused for a moment and dropped in, recognizing those old familiar feelings. Fear of trying something new. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of being called out as a fraud.

Imposter syndrome. 

I had been here before. My face pressed up against the glass watching as those who knew more than me laughed and shared and talked about how successful they were.  I was on the outside looking in. The glass serving to validate my feelings that I didn’t fit in. It was all the evidence I needed to prove that I was an outsider not worthy of being included.

And then in that moment I stood back - almost apart from my body, watching this scene unfold, witnessing without judgment. ‘You are the one that put the glass there. You have the power to roll down that window and step through it. No one is stopping you from engaging with them and learning from them except you. You are ostracizing and othering yourself in a strange, twisted self fulfilling prophecy’.  

With that I took a deep breath as my shoulders dropped, my jaw releasing ever so slightly. I remembered the last time I was here, peering through the glass. It was when I was just starting my coaching practice and I was in the process of educating myself - coaching 101. I signed up for a year-long program with 100 other women who came from an amazing breadth of background and experience. All more than I had at the time. I watched as they connected through the Facebook group and on our zoom calls and as they shared their successes - ones that I hadn’t yet experienced. 

Rather than jump in and engage with them, I sat back observing from behind the glass. It wasn’t until I took that leap - palms sweating and hair standing up on the back of my neck - and said ‘I’m Bridget and I am new to coaching, but I am ready to learn.’

The response was warm and engaging. From that point on, I made it a point to put myself out there, in uncomfortable situations, solely for the purpose of learning and growth. Over time, I learned from them, we partnered on projects and business plans and I made numerous new friends as I went. Those feelings of not good enough fading with every step.

Now, days later I am really proud of how I showed up for myself. Rather than get sucked into those stories, familiar patterns and old ways of being, I rode the wave and then I made a choice. I chose to get out of the water. I dug deep into the toolbox that I had curated over the past 2 decades and asked myself how is this happening for me? What am I to learn?

I believe that these experiences are the Universe’s way of showing us how far we’ve come on our journey. When we feel the temptation to reach for the comfortable, the known, we have a choice. A choice to instead stretch ourselves a little further to grasp for that which is just outside the edge of our comfort zone. 

So I am making a new commitment to myself as I embark on yet another growth opportunity - I will engage. I will ask questions. I will invest the time to learn from all of those who are finding success. I will feel the sweat on my palms, take a breath and lean in.

I will roll down that window and jump in.