This newsletter’s a little bit… different. I wanna’ let you in on a secret.
There’s nothing that makes me cringe more than when I run into a friend in the wild (aka “at the grocery store”), and they say “hey, I watched your YouTube video this week!” Of course, I smile and say, “thank you so much!”, but internally I feel like I’m being swallowed by a black hole of humiliation.
The truth is, it’s a lot easier to show up as your fully honest, fully unfiltered self online. To be eccentric and quirky. To be silly. To be honest about your opinions. To be free with your emotions. There’s safety when the people you’re most vulnerable with are on the other side of a screen.
I’ve had the honor of connecting with people all over the world who relate to the “weirdness”, who like my silly puns, who relate to my love for slow living. Sure, there’s been the occasional comment of “wow, you’re so obnoxious,” and “I can’t handle your voice,” but it’s easy to brush it off when you can’t put a name or a face to those words.
But what if those words came from the people I run into at the grocery store? From my friends? My church family? What if the people I know in-person wouldn’t like who I am if I didn’t filter out the honest things that make me me?
And so, I filter myself. I tone down the jokes. I tone down the silliness. I tone the opinions and emotions. I don’t share my ideas and my passions for fear that they’ll sound stupid or strange to others. I focus so much on saying the “right” thing, that I end up not saying anything at all.
And you know what? That’s a very sad way to live. I don’t give myself the opportunity to be truly known, and I don’t give others the opportunity to truly know me.
It took the gentle honesty of my dearest friend to show me just how much I’ve been holding myself back. I wrote a whole book last year on being unapologetically weird, yet I haven’t been living that out. (Maybe I need to give Ivy and the Special Somethings another read 😅)
And I decided, I don’t want to live like that anymore. I don’t want to filter myself out of fear. I should be as honest at the grocery store as I am in a YouTube video. I keep calling this my No-Fear Year, but honestly, the fear is still present. And it’s loud. But it’s also a lie. The truth is, being unapologetically yourself will turn some people away. And you know what? They weren’t supposed to be a part of your circle anyways. But when you’re honest, when you’re open, when you’re real, you’ll find the folks who get it. Who, like Bert and Ivy, love you for YOU. Who love the weird and wild or the shy and silly.