Journal Entry of a Trail-Blazer
When I first began this journey of creating my own website and business I imagined all the wonderful ways I could express my identity, get people interested in the great things that interested me, and especially how I could market and sell my crafts and art. As I dove deeper into that journey the creative spark inside me started to diminish to that which I thought people would understand, approve of, and especially spend their money on. My great, colorful kaleidoscope of a dream was shrinking and flattening into a very black and white and one-dimensional shape. This way of thinking seemed to quickly and certainly drain me of inspiration as I constantly compared myself to others and concerned myself with what they would think of me and pay for my work . At first I didn’t realize what was happening to me and to my dream that began with such creative freedom. I started feeling like a failure, a fake, and a fraud, all of my usual self-prescribed short-comings. I felt that I had completely lost the path. How did I get so far from who I thought I was? The need to “fit” somewhere had left me feeling like I didn’t fit anywhere at all.
“We develop our personalities by imagining ourselves through others’ eyes”. -After Skool, ‘Audience Capture—How “Influencers” Become Brainwashed’
It really takes a whole system reset to even begin to convince my mind not to compare myself to everyone else or imagine what others might think of me. Why do we do this? It is something we are born with? Or is it a learned behavior thanks to spending our entire childhoods being compared to each other and rewarded for conformity by our teachers, parents, community, etc.? Who is to blame for this persistent need to make ourselves miserable by thinking we will never be as good as others seem to be or good enough to be accepted by them? The tendency to feel and think this way about myself is so deep, so sub-conscious that I don’t realize I’m doing it until the feeling of inadequacy settles over me like a heavy humidity, suffocating my creativity and authenticity in an instant. Before I know it I’ve given up on my desire to create, to express, to contribute any bit of my uniqueness to the world. It’s a self-defeating cycle that’s almost undetectable in its sly ability to overpower me. Is this a demon of my own? Or something common in the average dreamer? Could it be a shadow of our shared collective consciousness? Do you ever feel this way?
Reprogramming myself to recognize these self-sabotaging moments and to transmute them into wild self-acceptance is something I find myself referring to as the ‘Great Work’. Personal alchemy, transforming dense energy into free-flowing self-expression is the goal, to be able to share my unique gifts without trimming them down and fitting them into the little boxed categories those before me have given me to choose from. A trail blazer, forging my own path as I have with my education, my business, homeschooling my daughter, and especially my spirituality, which I’ve never been able to identify in pre-determined terms. (No, Grandma, I’m not Wiccan, just Rachel.) I guess I could say I’m taking the road not traveled, carrying a lantern through the uncertain darkness to find what mystery is hidden in the shadows and carry it into the light. So that’s where you’ll find me, off the beaten path, blazing a whole new trail, with maybe a few breadcrumbs left behind for those who dare to go off course too. Will I see you there? —Love, The Nightbird.
“I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
