Have you ever tried your best at something and it wasn’t good enough?
I’ve been training for hula. It’s been intense and wonderful. It has stretched me in the most uncomfortable ways. I’ve come face-to-face with my insecurities. I see where I normally give up and the patterns that have kept me stuck for years. It’s been equal parts fun and ass kicking.
Sunday I got word that I didn’t make it on the team. As I sat there in the room in shock I kept telling myself, just hold it together, just hold it together. You see, I’m all about being vulnerable, but I didn’t feel like it was the right time and space. There were people who were celebrating and so excited…
It reminded me of American Idol Group Rounds. When a group of singers practice all night long for their audition the next day. There is always lots of drama on group round night… people aren’t sleeping, there are divas, controllers, and people inevitably forget their lines. On the day of the audition, sometimes the whole group makes it and everybody celebrates. Other times one or two people make in the group and the others don’t…. you see half the group excited, screaming they made it… And right behind them is a person who didn’t, the person in pain who has a smile on her face happy for her friends that made it but deep inside just holding it together.
So on the way home I cried… But not too much because I was headed to a Super Bowl Party at my neighbors and was going to be around a group. I couldn’t have people ask me if I was okay. I knew I’d fall apart. So I held it together and enjoyed the last quarter of the football game.
Holding it together takes a LOT of energy. It’s that way anytime our insides don’t match our outsides.
When I talk with women who are working a corporate job and want to teach yoga, or someone who secretly dreams of writing a book, painting, dancing, teaching workshops… It takes energy to hold these dreams and not do anything with them.
It takes a whole lot more energy to imagine them in our heads, to long for them and do nothing than to actually take steps towards them. That’s why many women feel down, tired, depressed, lonely. Their vision is their connection with spirit. Yes, it’s scary as heck to try, to put yourself out there and move forward. It also feels amazingly alive.
It was scary to dance my heart and put ALL of myself out there. And the worst thing DID happen… I didn’t make it. But you know what? Now that I’m sitting in what I’ve always thought was the worst pain, I know its not the worst. The worst would be not even trying at all and wondering…
Share below. Where are you holding it together? What is sucking your energy and how can you free it up?
