I was listening to one of my go-to podcasts in the car a few weeks back, The Lively Show, and I heard Jess, the host, talk about a blog post she wrote a few years back. The title was Things I’m Afraid to Tell You, and I thought, whoa, how freakin’ brave, I want to do things like that.

Then I thought, this is really scary. Writing down your innermost feelings without a filter to make it pretty – what?! But at the same time, it felt so right. In this day and age when so much of what we read and see online feels contrived, I want to experiment with being as real as I can.

Sometimes this will be short and sometimes it will be long. It’s hard to actually verbalise these things as I feel I will be judged, but I have come to a point in my life and career that I feel it’s important to acknowledge the messiness of real life and real feelings.

In the spirit of transparency, here it goes. Boy, it’s hard to hit publish on this one….

• When I see girls with really nice material things, I assume some man paid for them, a father, husband, boyfriend. I don’t assume they paid for these things themselves, I assume they are lucky.
• I have days where I feel completely empty. I feel like I can’t possibly give anymore and I can’t do much more than shower, make food and watch tv. I feel like a fraud on these days.
• When I lose a client a feel like it’s because I am not good enough.
• I worry that I care too much about how I look
• I worry that I don’t care enough about how I look.
• I hate when people look at me for more than a few seconds, it makes me feel super self-conscious.
• I don’t feel like I will ever have enough money.
• This makes me feel greedy, because I know I have more than most.
• Sometimes I wish prince charming, the lotto, a huge windfall would show up and take care of everything.
• I hate how much I care about my weight.
• When I weigh myself, which I seldom do because of this reason, it tends to ruin my whole day.

Ok, that feels like a lot. I hope this makes you feel less alone in your self-doubt, and you realize that we are all connected by our humanness more than we can ever imagine.

I encourage you to take the time to write down the things that make you afraid. Even if you don’t share them with others, writing them down and reading them back to yourself can release some of the power they hold. It’s in keeping it hidden that we give our fears power.

Always Polishing Up,
Jodi