For me writing a blog was always a way to work through my thoughts and feelings. It has always been a way to manage my well-being. It has however always been a two edged sword. One side is helpful, and helps me make sense of my thoughts and feelings. The other less helpful edge creates a vulnerability that is quite unsettling and exposing. I doubt very much that I am exceptional when it comes to feeling vulnerable when I publish anything, in fact I am pretty certain the majority of people that create anything and put it in the public domain all have a degree of anxiety before they put it out there. This feeling of vulnerability however, has prevented me from writing anything for quite a few months now. Let me get this write, it has not been the vulnerability that has stopped me, it has been my aversion to the feeling that, that vulnerability creates that has stopped me. For the past 6 months I think I have been shying away from discomfort. I think this might be because my work is more challenging than it has been for a while, so I have been leaning into this discomfort that is creating, so I just have not had the energy to make myself feel vulnerable outside of work. Work life has been my priority, i have wanted to get it right, so I have been prepared to be vulnerable at work and take on new challenges. When I get home that has meant that I have just not wanted to expose myself and share my thoughts.
Let me explain what vulnerability is to me in relation to writing a blog and my new role. Let me start with my role (which in fact I have been doing for a year now). Whenever we all start a new role, there is always, a feeling of being an imposter. For some people this feeling is quite large and overwhelming, often preventing people from taking action for fear of being exposed, and for others like me, it is just a feeling of discomfort that sits in the back of your mind and makes you pay attention and learn, as you only want to make mistakes once. A moderate amount of feeling like an imposter is helpful and is a great driver, but it is exhausting as I am constantly considering the impact I am having on the work I do and the people around me. I will most weeks have a low level of anxiety, which occasionally spills over to full on anxiety. None of this is a problem, and I am assuming is perfectly normal. Vulnerability at work is feeling like an imposter, but acting anyway and being open to learning and improving. Vulnerability when writing my blog is very similar to work. Whenever I write I feel like an imposter, probably more so than at work. At work I have extensive knowledge, experience and formal qualifications to back me up. When it comes to writing a blog apart from having an ‘O’ Level in English Language I have no qualifications in writing. When it comes to the content I write about, it is a mixture of my personal experience and my professional experience and knowledge, mixed in with what I am interested in. Most of that is subjective, and I very well aware that there are a lot of people far more qualified than me writing about this subject matter. Every time I write a blog I feel like an imposter, I however my mouse over the publish tab, worrying about what people will think of me, worrying about what people will say behind my back and to my face. Then I normally embrace my vulnerability and publish anyway. The pay off for me was always that my blogs help me sort out my thoughts and have helped others. That would always give me the motivation to publish and allow myself to be vulnerable. Recently I have just not had the bandwidth to embrace feeling vulnerable all the time.
What has changed? I realised that I have used my blog to restore myself , and I have missed the process of writing and expressing my thoughts and feelings. Avoiding being vulnerable was not helping me at all, therefore I thought I would get back to it, and use it as part of my self-care alongside regular gentle exercise, so here is my first blog after a long break.
Connected Coaching 