Terrify Yourself, Productively
“Perhaps I am not interesting, but I am the only thing I have to offer, and I want to offer something.”
Each human being is infinitely interesting and unique, even though we look more the same than different as a species, like little ants wearing clothes when you zoom way out. In therapy we zoom all the way in and marinate in our subjectivity in order to parse our singular experience, which is how we develop the capacity to change. But in order to be able to truly do differently, first we have to get brave.
Make an Utterance to the World
Go rogue and say the unexpected. Honor your inner truth and attempt to say in your life, and do in your work, what thrills you but also most terrifies you—that which you fancy accomplishing but have been too afraid to try and fail because you have never been creative enough, smart enough, wise enough, or ready enough.
You Are Enough
When you act from a place of courage, your amygdala—the ancient emotional fight or flight center in that cute little reptile part of your brain—will be not only be soothed but you will finally feel like enough, and as a result your self-confidence—located right around your prefrontal cortex—that reasoning, wise, intellectual, sexier part of your brain will develop stronger to be more capable and will improve your sense of judgment. Your confidence will be contagious and others will believe in you, too.
Have Your Own Back
Courage means having the faith in yourself that you will be able to figure out what to do next when you are brave, no matter what happens. We can’t plan any fleeting external validation that feels so good when it does happen, nor can we force it out of any outside circumstance or person; we must learn to validate ourselves and earn our own approval from within. That’s the journey and the work. You’ll never regret believing in yourself on your deathbed. Facts.
