I will beat the shame game by owning my journey.
Whenever I visit other blogs, I’m inspired or motivated to work on my own. Then when I’m on my blog, tinkering with widgets or brainstorming new content ideas, I start to look at my past content and want to hide it all. I have this itch for a fresh start. And just a few moments ago, I was reminded why I shouldn’t start all over again, and I should start owning my journey.
Blanket Fort Adventures is my longest blog relationship. I’ve been sharing my life online since 2003 under different names and on different platforms. And although an early adopter of blogging, the inconsistency in my online identity meant I was never in one place long enough to build up a readership. But Blanket Fort Adventures has been around for a while now, since December 2011, and the topics discussed, the focus – it’s been all over the place. In 2017, an unfocused blog / purely online diary is a total faux pax. How do you grow that? Well, I’ll tell you it’s flipping difficult. So while in the midst of re-strategizing BFA, I scrolled through my Bloglovin profile looking at the visual inconsistency, the weak blog titles, and what caught my eye was all my road trip posts.
My cross-country road trip. My dream trip that I planned and executed in October of 2014. I went to the category all the posts are housed and just scrolled through all the adventures. I smiled. My eyes were wide, and I admired the woman in the pictures. I admired myself. And that doesn’t happen very often.
After listening to a dozen or so interviews and Ted Talks with Brené Brown I’ve come to realize, I carry around a lot of shame. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always had the gremlins in my head saying I’m not enough and I’m not capable. As an adult, I combat them with daily affirmations and a bunch of other coping tools, but those gremlins are still pretty strong on a day to day basis. Especially since I started planning a wedding.
As I looked back at my old road trip posts, at the bad graphic design and fuzzy photos, I silenced the gremlins of shame and decided to own my journey. My journey in blogging, relationships, career, life — everything. I’ve exposed parts of my journey, and I shouldn’t feel ashamed of it. I shouldn’t hide it in the pursuit of perfection either. I am who I am.
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
― Brené Brown
The best thing for me to do now, for my blog and myself, is to come to a place of acceptance. I can pursue general self-improvement and creative growth with out it defining a lack of who I am. Yup, really have to work on moving out of a fixed mindset and into a growth mindset. So, I’m not hiding it. I’m not hiding my countless attempts at a weekly Friday series with different names and formats. I’m not hiding the countless, “It’s been a while since I’ve blogged,” posts. I’m not hiding. My mistakes are exposed, so we can ALL learn from them.
Thank you for letting me share my journey with you. My imperfection. My shame.
p.s. I can’t help but feel a little silly to be having this deep reflection and dialogue with myself because of an analysis around my blog. But, it is a safe way to express a much deeper self-examination I’m experiencing. Because perpetual self-doubt and shame is nonconstructive and poisons the potential greatness that life possesses. There is a war between light and darkness going on outside of us, so we have to beat the battles within to win the war for love and light.