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Writing and publishing a public-facing exhibit and podcast is more of a challenge than getting in a tub of icebergs.

A little known way to completely quiet the mind of all sensical and meaningful content is to decide that you must write some of that content every day and share it. Thoughts be gone.

I’m now setting a writing timer for 15 minutes to up the ante here. I now have 14:22 left.

I began the day by taking a photo of an almost-empty peanut butter jar, feeling it had something to do with what needed said. Well, I think that jar will still find its way into the writing room, but not now.

Now, what is finding its way in is the realization of the importance of short-term, attainable, challenging goals in my life. I love these little challenges and I’m finding that I keep adding more and more to the list. 

On my nighttime city walks (mornings are for foothills walks) I am challenging myself to see this familiar place as if for the first time and photographing the journey.

Tonight (yes, these are now being written the night before - gasp!) I felt just as inadequate about facing that challenge as I do this one now. 

Why?

Because there is this guy in my head who has a thousand different voices and they are all conspiring to tell me to keep quiet, stop sharing, and step away from this before I humiliate myself.

Even now, sitting here typing and reading this aloud, I have a faint sense of that voice. 

It’s good curriculum.  I know that. It’s good to put myself on these rather low-risk edges where I can push through the “wall” and the “noise” and find out who I am and what I can do in the process. 

There’s a good bit of fear of failure and rejection in those voices.  Just labeling them is actually calming down the nervous system in the here and now. 

How about I take a couple of physiological breaths? Breathe in through the nostrils and fill up the lungs, then a little bit more in…and exhale. Another…..

Ahhhh…one of the quickest ways to activate the PNS (parasympathetic nervous system) and feel a sense of calm and grounding in the body. Just ask Andrew Huberman. He taught me.

Nervous system in a calmer state, prefrontal cortex lighting up, thinking/writing resuming...Emily comes into room. Well, hell, that just threw this almost-found-a-flow all out of whack. Back to a couple of breaths. I’ve only got 4:21 seconds left. That went rather quickly.

But I’m doing it. I’m pushing through something that is challenging. Doing it.  

Not only is there something on the other side, there is something here and now. 

I’m coming into direct contact with the fears and insecurities that often work more intensely and yet quietly in the background, influencing my life in subconscious and consequential ways.

I’m glad that I’m flushing them out. 

Fear is a thing, after all. 

And I am the one noticing it rising and falling.

I am. 

I am noticing and welcoming and being with fear and also welcoming the sense of accomplishment of writing tonight when I absolutely did not want to do it. 

27 seconds and counting and I’m here being and listening and living.

Deep breath.

Time.