So I did a thing yesterday...I recorded my first attempt at a podcast. It isn't perfect but it really felt right.
So things are going to be changing up a little...
Well, sort of, I am still going to be writing daily. It has just become part of who I am and I think I would lose my mind if I stopped. But starting in January, I will be starting a podcast. I will publish every Monday beginning January 3rd, 2022.
I am terrified.
Seriously.
But it feels like the next indicated thing so I am going to do it. I feel a little bit like a SNL skit...my voice irritates me and makes me feel oh so insecure. But that is really what this blog has always been, a place for me to throw myself out there and just let myself land wherever I might...self judgment aside. Do it anyway. Despite all the clamoring inside my head that tells me:
No one will listen.
No one will care.
Nothing you have to say is interesting.
This is a waste of time.
This is not a good idea.
You do not have time for this.
Who are you to dare do this?
Well, I said almost the exact same things about the blog. And guess what, people read it and a lot of people care.
I may not be the most interesting person in the world but I think that some things that I say have value, well, I know that they do because you have reached out and told me that they do.
Doing something that scares you but grows you is never a waste of time.
How would I know if this is a good idea or not? If there is one thing I have proven time and again, it is that my efforts to figure out what is bad and what is good in this life is most of the time completely, totally wrong. So who am I to judge good and bad? It is an idea. That is all I know.
I have time. I cannot tell you how much time I waste on Facebook and Instagram or online shopping. Seriously, I could likely get a PhD in the time that I waste doing mindless shit because I do not know what to do with myself.
And finally I get to the heart of the matter...that voice that tells me “Who do you think you are to try and do a podcast?” Well, that is the same voice that has talked me out of pretty much everything in my life...
I didn’t go to Georgetown or Stanford because I didn’t apply.
I didn’t do a semester abroad because I was too codependent.
I haven’t finished my book yet because I do not feel that anyone will want to read it.
Who are any of us to try anything?
We are just humans doing things. Some good, some bad. But we are all just living our lives and it is all quite daring actually. I do not think that I am special - I think that I am just trying to move in the direction of good and light and healing. I am trying to be me, that is all.
The fundamental concept in all of this is lack of worth. Which is really just the other side of arrogance. Humility is the goal and it is so hard to reach. I am not what I do and can only become greater by stretching towards the light. I have to dare and be bold to work to achieve my life’s purpose. I have to move in the direction of goodness. And that takes a certain amount of arrogance, to think that I even know where the fuck goodness can be found.
So I start this new endeavor with the utmost feeling of wanting to vomit a little. Excited but terrified. And that seems to me to be the feeling when you are about as humble as one can get. Daring to move forward with all the doubt dogging your every step...but doing it anyway. Allowing yourself to be led...
I have watched so many newcomers in recovery do this...each day of their recovering lives...dogged by addiction, gripped with fear and dis-ease, they continue to show up to the meetings, sometimes way over confident that they have this thing and then when they drag their sorry asses into the meeting destroyed by feelings of fear, insecurity and dread. It is a thing this moving forward despite all the committee members in your head telling you it won’t work, you don’t have what it takes and you are stupid to even try.
But those newcomers (I used to be one) keep showing up in spite of all the crap their head’s tell them. They keep showing up and doing the deal and learning day by day to trust that right action always follows right action and that while they are never guaranteed to wind up where they want, if they keep going they will likely end up in a far greater place than they have ever been.
So it is with recovering newcomers that I begin this new path. Walking toward the light with hopeful intentions and purpose. I know not where it leads, only that I am supposed to move in this direction, so I shall, it matters not what my head tells me...only that I begin.
January 3, 2022 - be there, be you.
