Tears of suffering from the harsh lies of the bitch in the corner. Tears of hopelessness, tears of trapped, tears of working, pushing, forcing, trying to make it happen so hard, for so long, so many times that it seems pitiful, idiocy, failure to continue.

And with deadlines looming ahead of me, of when I will no longer receive support, of when debts will be called, of when it must happen or else …. I wonder.

Is the fear right?

Maybe this is impossible.

Maybe continuing this thing is throwing good time, good money, good energy after bad.

Maybe, even though I change people’s lives, even though I’ve experienced more joy and connection and freedom in the last few years than I thought was possible, even though I know there are people that I have yet to help …

Maybe this venture is doomed.

So I wonder … is there another option?

Another option that seems more reasonable.

More likely. More endorsed by society and logic and the bitch in my head.

Well yes. There is another option.

The other option is to go back.

Back to safety, to stability, to a guaranteed paycheck with a great 401(k) and health package and a few weeks of vacation every year.

Back to becoming that girl.

Well … that’s only sort of an option.

You see, that 401(k) menagerie has been ruined for me forever.

Now I know that there is no safe, that the stability is an artifice, that there are no guarantees.

Now that I know, going back would be the foolish choice.

I wish there was some third choice.

Something real but not scary.

Something changing the world, but not risky.

Something following my purpose, without having to face my lessons.

But that’s not how it works, eh?

It’s feel the fear, or it’s be the fool.

We can choose to live in uncomfortable, to take the risks, to grow past our boundaries … or we can choose to push our heads back inside the sand, to chicken out, to shrink our souls.

There is no in between.

#fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

That is all, my loves. Goodnight.

Related posts:

1. The Terrible Secrets of the Uncomfortables.
2. The Faith of Art
3. The Tree That Wasn’t There Before

Would you like to try out the 18 Days to Live Your Truth ecourse before you make the commitment?

Today I’m sharing the first “pre-unit” class, exercise & experiment from 18 Days (this is the actual class that I just posted on the password-protected membership site) so you can check it out & see if it’s your kind of thing.

Even if you’re not into 18 Days, these are great questions to think about to get you started on the right track for any program you’re joining!

Pre-Unit: Before 18 Days – Get Unstuck Before You Start

In this unit you will learn:

• What questions you need to ask yourself before you start any program – and which answers mean you need to stop now.
• How to troubleshoot sabotage … before it starts.
• The best way to track success at & keep going in any program.

Don’t forget to download the Before 18 Days Exercise pdf & the Experiment pdf!

In the actual 18 Days to Live Your Truth program, you also will have an opportunity to share your experience with the other members of the program, get their feedback, hear my post-exercise/experiment follow up information, and ask questions.

But in the meanwhile – feel free to share your answers & questions here, below!

Also – 18 Days to Live Your Truth closes to enrollment on Monday, June 6th at 9:00 PM Pacific time – so don’t wait to learn more and ask your questions!

Related posts:

1. Behind 18Days: Why’s of the Long Form Sales Letter, Pricing, 18 Days & Promo
2. twenty-eight days: misplacing my voice and other reasons to pick up a pen
3. An Anti-Confession of Days Not Written

Someone who is comfortable in front of an audience. A group. A camera.

Who can connect with people, talk to anyone, convey a message. Even occasionally create a little scared space for transformation to occur.

Until Sunday morning.

When I realized that all my lofty considerations were just hiding a deeper level of bullshit.

It was 10:15 AM on Sunday morning, and I stood in front of the group and announced, “I want to talk about how I’m freaking out.”

It was one of those “share your ah’a moments from last night” things at a training seminar, and after about 7 other people had gone, it was my turn at the microphone.

I’m usually one of those people, who sits in the front row, who shares over and over, who everyone knows by the end of the weekend.

But not this weekend.

I had been hiding.

Behind the tall girl, stuck in the middle, in the back rows, not raising my hand, thinking about leaving, hiding in the bathroom, eating room service for dinner, thinking that perhaps this was a bit too much for me, listing the thousand reasons I didn’t have time and it was not a good idea and maybe I should wait until next year.

As I stood there in front of the group, I decided to fuck it all and tell the whole truth.

The whole truth I didn’t even know yet, until it started blabbering out of my mouth.

I was afraid.

I had got really comfortable hiding in front of the camera.

The idea of sharing my truth with people face to face, with projecting my energy out to everyone, completely freaked me out.

Then Alison (the seminar leader) interrupted me. And said it.

“Look at them.”

“Don’t look at me. Don’t look over their heads. Look. At. Them.”

I couldn’t.

I couldn’t look at anyone in the face and keep speaking my truth.

I broke down and cried, right there, in front of audience, listening that little “awh” noise welling up from them, making me feel comforted and mortified at the same time.

WTF EPW?!!

I’m a speaker! I’ve spoken in front of groups of hundreds of people! Why was I unable to stay composed before an intimate group of 100 people who were all rooting for me to succeed?

Because …

There Is No Group.

The group, the tribe, the crowd, the audience … doesn’t exist.

That’s just a construction, a way to dehumanize, a way to oversimplify, a way to categorize, a way to create an artifice of safety for those of us up on the stage.

The group doesn’t scare me.

Individuals scare me. People scare me.

While yes, I’m totally able to speak my truth, be myself, share all kinds of information and stories, while in front of a camera or written on a blog or up on a stage …

I share nothing.

I risk nothing. I reveal nothing.

The energy of me stops at the edge of my skin.

At the front of the stage. At the keys on the laptop. At the lens of my camera.

The apparent courage and fearlessness and strength … is a shell.

Because the strength comes from hiding. Protecting. Shielding.

Not from allowing myself to be vulnerable in front of people whom I do not yet trust.

Not from taking a leap of faith, letting the unknowns see my soul, opening myself up to rejection and criticism and damage from people unprescreened, unverified, unresearched.

And a part of me is completely convinced that I will spontaneously die from it.

Just drop dead from energetic overwhelm. While still holding the microphone.

So that’s one of the boundaries I’m working on right now.

Making the leap from hiding in front of the camera, to exposing my soul face to face, sharing and extending my energy over the interwebz, the soundsystem, the coffee table.

And let’s all hope I don’t spontaneously combust.

–

I’d love to hear from you!

What are you afraid of? Speaking in front of a group, writing your truth, the camera, speaking with people one-on-one? What boundary are you pushing right now?

Related posts:

1. What Do You Do In a Mastermind Group?
2. My Mastermind Group Reins Me In
3. Where Anger Lives.

I confirmed my safety via text, and then checked sfgate.com (the mobile website of the San Francisco Chronicle) thinking they would have the latest “official” news.

Found nothing except general “yay we won the World Series” stuff. Hum.

So I went to twitter. (Of course.)

Yes. There it was. Thousands of people had been rioting most of the night after the SF Giants won the World Series – most of those riots taking place a few blocks from my apartment.

Even confirmed by the people checking into the riots via 4square. (lol & wtf.)

(Why does the local team succeeding inspire some people to go out and run around screaming, break bottles, set fires, and sabotage the municipal bus system? Sigh.)

But the San Francisco Chronicle called this “joyful mayhem” – as if calling it “joyful” makes it okay. As if this behavior is a necessary part of victory. As if rioting about a sporting event is part of free speech and free assembly, a celebrated part of what it means to be American.

Yet another reason I don’t read the paper.

But the thing is, this bullshit spin on reality happens everywhere. From everyone.

In politics (thank god I don’t have TV this election season so I missed the nasty commercials), in our romantic relationships, in our marketing, even subtly in our 140 character tweets.

Human beings naturally spin facts and truth to manipulate the people around them into thinking, being, behaving how they want.

So we can hide our fears we wish to never be discovered. So we can get others to fulfill our needs we’re afraid to ask for. So we can force people to do what we wish they would do anyway.

We all do this.

Sometimes because we aren’t aware we are doing it.

Sometimes because we are afraid no one will meet our needs until we trick them.

Sometimes because we have no other framework except subtle manipulation and outright force.

This is the current frontier of Live Your Truth.

It’s all nice and good to have your Moment & get all self-actualized. In a vacuum.

But we live in a world of other humans.

And we still need to get stuff done.

We need to get our needs met. We need to deal with people who may never get us and those who are also on this journey, with people who don’t give a crap about our mission and those who are totally on board, with people who have never read a self-help book and those who are all about yogaish woowoo self-improvementness.

The question is – how do we do deal with people and also live our truth?

In a few days I’ll be sharing my newest program, Live Your Truth in Partnership, where we will be exploring this for the next 10 months.

A framework for understanding ourselves and each other. For making deals so everyone gets what they need, without anyone being “taken.” For working, living, loving other people – simultaneously living our own truth without squashing theirs.

For building partnerships with every person in our lives – family, friends, partners, significant others, kids, clients, coworkers, colleagues – so we can support each other, create win-win dynamics, and still all be completely ourselves.

Want to join me on this new adventure?

If so … get on the First Dibs list so you don’t miss the announcement!

Related posts:

1. Speaking, Bullsh*t, and Billionaires: Post-#Shine Wrap Up pt 2

And now that horrid, sickening feeling is coursing through your body.

Your mind, your gut, your very cells, the genes passed down to you from your caveperson ancestors who needed them to flee saber-toothed tigers and various impending dooms are all screaming at you:

STOP! IMMINENT DANGER! YOU WILL MAKE YOURSELF DEAD IF YOU JUMP OFF THIS CLIFF!

Worse, they’re shooting hormones through you, sabotaging your great leaps of spirit and faith, by dragging you back down into basic human-animal survival mode.

Into acting practically. Into acting rationally.

Into the deadening morass of the management of risk.

Unless.

Unless you make the choice that makes your ego, the bitch in the corner, the resistance monster, and the caveperson in you all cringe in fear and disbelief, wanting to gang up on you to kidnap your soul and stick you with pins until you give into their mediocratic bidding.

Unless you make the completely unreasonable choice.

Unless you choose to live every day in the Uncomfortables.

Yes, you read that right. Live. Every. Day.

Because that is the first terrible secret.

This panic? This fear?

This sense that you need to run or fight or throw up or hide under a warm thick blanket so the unknowns can’t drag you away?

That feeling doesn’t go away.

As long as you are living your truth, as long as you keep pushing your boundaries, as long as you are moving forward and expanding your soul, you will feel scared and uncertain and uncomfortable every single day.

Yes. Every. Day.

But before you run away to wail and beat your chests, deriding the futileness of it all, let me share the second terrible secret with you.

The Uncomfortables are actually a gift.

The Uncomfortables are a tool to help you live with the ramifications of the Moment, to manage the challenges of Living Your Truth.

The trick is to recharacterize the Uncomfortables from a feeling to be avoided – to a feeling to be appreciated. To be cherished.

Reprogramming your brain to use the Uncomfortables as a signpost, customized for your mind, your body, your soul.

A thermometer to measure whether you’re doing something mediocre or magnificent, whether you’re staying in safety or pushing your boundaries, whether you’re stuck in the shoulds or living your truth.

The third terrible secret is that the Uncomfortables always mean something very particular.

Is this Uncomfortable a scary-yet-exciting, a sickening-yet-expansive message from your ego who wants to keep you small and safe? Does it mean, yes, this scary action is exactly what will move you forward on the path to embracing and living your truth?

Then thank your ego for the fear & take the scary action anyway.

Or, is this Uncomfortable a gross, disempowering, deflating message from your soul who wants you to fulfill your purpose on this earth? Telling you that this scary action is a guilt-ridden should that would take you backward into mediocrity, and must be avoided at any cost?

Then thank your soul for the fear & say no to the should.

The fourth terrible secret of the Uncomfortables is only you will know the difference.

Only you will know if the Uncomfortable means hell yes or hell no.

Sorry about that.

–

This is part 3 of The Live Your Truth Manifesto.

–

How do you deal with the fear, with the uncomfortable feelings?

Have they gotten better? Have they changed for you?

I’d love to hear your thoughts below!

Related posts:

1. The Secrets of a Good Southern Girl
2. Secrets of an Entrepreneur: Move Fast
3. EPW Live Ep4: My Secrets for Twitter Stalking & Promotion