#150: The fear of becoming

Hey - if you're more of a listener than a reader, I also tried reading this newsletter out as a Podcast. Let me know if you find this helpful or an engaging way to connect, it was a bit weird to do, but definitely something in it.

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I’m not only afraid of what I am letting go of.

I am not only afraid of what I am losing.

I am not only sad for what I might say goodbye to in my life.

I am afraid of what my life may become.

I am afraid of who I may become.

I’m entering a period of great change, I know I am and I can feel it.

I think I have been for well over a year, as the decision to step down as Sanctus CEO was the epitome of this change and has taken me about 18 months to come to terms with.

I had to be able to let go of Sanctus as an object I identify with and gain my sense of self from. This is exactly what happened to me with my first business, I had attached so much of my self-worth and importance to my first business that when it failed, I felt like such a failure and so empty inside that I was completely naked, completely exposed and in a lot of emotional pain.

I look back on that period fondly now, although I’d be happy not to relive it, yet the power of that period of nakedness, where my ego had been stripped away was that I was just nothing. I was just me as I am, the human that is me.

From there, I was then able to organically follow my interests, my intuition which in that case lead me down a path that I could never have imagined, to opening up, to mental health, to Sarah, to Sanctus.

The fear of letting go and leaving something behind I have found to be paralysing in my life a couple of times now, both with different big life decisions that for me have evolved around my work; 1) Shutting down a business, 2) Deciding not to run a business. For a period, the fear of what I would lose completely shut me down.

Yet, the fear of what may happen, the fear of the unknown has in both cases been even more crippling and intense.

Most recently, with Sanctus, I could cognitively get myself to the point of stepping down as CEO, yet it took a long time to support myself enough in sitting with the question, of well what then? What next? Who will I be?

I remain still a little fearful of this uncertainty. Will I want to leave Sanctus forever? Do I want to be a Primary School Teacher? Do I want to sit around and paint all day? How will I earn money? Will I lose my friends? Will I lose out? What about everything I have built so far?

All of these question are in my head and remain there even now.

The root. The deep root that I am returning to time and time again is the belief that without my work, without a business, without a brand, without possessions, objects, things, I am not enough, my being alone is not enough.

It’s this one simple thought that is and has been destructive for me.

As I step more into uncertainty, it’s this belief that I am beginning to dismantle. If I was naked, alone on a desert island I would be curious, creative, ambitious, connected. I would be inherently good, I would be happy. At my essence, I am enough. Or, more plainly, I am.

As I enter this place, what many might call “just being” I find it still scary and my mind or you might call it my ego is still looking for new things to latch onto and identify with.

Art and Chess have been my latest obsessions. Art began as a meaningful way to connect and to express myself and I’m so pleased to have had a few people buy my art. Yet even with this, my ego began to gloat; “you’re an artist!”

I’m not an Artist, I just like art and I’m enjoying it at the moment.

I don’t disbelieve in defining or labelling myself, yet I do when it’s for the reason of creating an identity that others or I will admire simply for it’s label alone.

Chess, too. It began after watching the Queen’s Gambit and ended in me desperately spending hours playing back to back games on Chess.com. Another way to disassociate from being, to obsess over something else, to win.

Again, sometimes, playing Chess is pure, fun, free and I enjoy it. I like playing. Other times, I must win, if I do not win, I am not enough - something insignificant becomes a way to sate my desire for more.

Being is hard. Mainly because I am not used to simply being and that alone being enough. Also because it is raw, it is connected and it is intimate and there are mirrors up everywhere showing me who I am at my purest.

What I am noticing though, is what is already there when I look in front of me. Opportunity, potential, people, possibility. It’s as if the world is beginning to come to me, rather than I going to look for it.

I have naturally reached out to people, or people I have not heard from for a while have reached out to me. I have had opportunities come my way already that I would not have expected.

The beauty of just being is that life does all the hard work for you, because life just is and I am simply there with it, as part of it.

I realise I am writing in another language, one that even I barely understand yet I know I am speaking to what for me is a universal truth and comes from a place of inner knowing where even if others do not agree with my words, there is no right or wrong.

Down here, wherever I am, all I know is that I can be anything, anybody at any time. There is a limitlessness and the desire to be something is beginning to feel obsolete and irrelevant.

What I am seeing is that this doesn’t mean I do nothing. This doesn’t mean I sit and meditate all day. It means that what I do is not how I define myself. The tasks I do, things I create or what I work on are parts of me being alive, not projections of who I am or what I am worth.

Still, these words are tumbling out without me being able to hold them all in, this is just my truth that I can write or say no other way.

Everything I am experiencing right now reminds me of mental health and why I and so many avoid stepping in to look wholly at our lives. The fear of what I may see is just one part, the fear of who I am and who I may become is far stronger. The travesty is that herein lies all the possibility and all the potential.

I’m reminded of this again, in what feels like a second big “awakening” in my life and I’m humbled to laughter that I think I probably did, at times, believe I’d cracked it.

For so many years I’ve plagued myself with the question, “who am I?”

I was looking for the answer or the definition, the perfect instagram bio.

With my feet on the floor right now, I don’t want to know the answer, I just want to ask the question.

And keep asking the question, maybe with one extension.

Who am I, in this moment?

What I'm up to:

• I'm reading "The Bell" by Iris Murdoch

• I'm listening to "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle

• I'm rowing with Fulham Reach (loving it)

• I'm journaling with Sanctus. Sign up to our new Journal and journaling community. 

• I'm drawing. Have put some of my Art up on here, COVID one is the latest one.

• I'm doing mental health talks in businesses and all the money is going to Charity - get in touch if you're interested.