Wait a minute. Who’s driving this thing?

I’m showing up empty-handed today.

The deadline is looming large.

I’m sitting down to write this post 49 minutes before it is due.

Today I’m flying by the seat of my pants.

I have no idea what I’m going to say, and no time to edit it if it turns out terribly.

If you’re along for the ride, welcome.

You and your forks

This is the second time it has happened.

It’s the second month in a row that people have visited my site looking for blog content even more than they end up on the main page.

I’m not very web savvy, so I tell myself a story that makes sense to me:

I lay out this very nice Welcome mat in front of my site.

I add pictures and writing and try to make it easy for you to find your way around.

But instead of coming in the front door of my site, people are coming in through a back window and into the kitchen, looking for… blogcake.

And when I looked at these stats last month, it was like I stumbled into the kitchen and found you all with your forks out, looking hungry.  Yikes!

The fear of expectations

I’m getting thousands of visitors a month now, not hundreds.

Thousands.  That’s a lot of pairs of eyes reading these very last minute words.

And you’ve taken the time to write me personally.

We’re building relationships.

Even single email exchanges of “Hey, thanks for that last post—it meant a lot!” are power-packed moments of gratitude for us both.

And now’s the time when I can’t find time to write.

When I get stuck.  Hmm.

Isn’t that interesting?

(Yes, we therapists ask these same annoying questions of ourselves that we ask of our clients.)

What’s getting me stuck?  What am I afraid of?

What if I threw a party…

For a long time, I didn’t know if people were reading this blog.

That brought anxiety up, of course.

It’s the whole, “What if I threw a party and nobody came?” thing.

Well, now I’m stuck with a much bigger dilemma.

It’s the, “What if I threw a party and everybody came?” fear.

It’s the fear of being seen.  I’ve talked before about the positive side of being seen.

And I’m writing about this fear today, because I’ll bet it is a fear a lot of you have.

And if you don’t struggle with it, you probably know someone who does.

And this isn’t just about getting up on stage and talking in front of groups.  Or blogging for a big audience.

We can get scared of being seen in lots of different ways.

In relationships, for example.  How many times have you had your feelings hurt in an important relationship and tried to hide it?

Or felt a lot of excitement and pride about an idea but then wondered if it was okay to share it?

I bet I’m not the only one.

And another thing…

Just show up and see what happens.

I was really tempted to just not show up today.  To write a brief post about taking a break and leaving it alone until next week.

But I didn’t.  And now I’m pleased that I resisted the urge.

And how many times have you wanted to give up on something?

Just chuck the whole thing out and start over or walk away?

So much of our progress is just about showing up.  It’s about being there.  It’s about the first 30 seconds when you’re staring at the blank screen.

If you can tolerate the first 30 seconds, you’ll be able to handle the next 30 minutes.

I have just nine minutes left to write.  Better wrap this up.

Today’s nuggets

I’ve meandered through a few topics today.  Let’s review and try to make sense of it now:

1.)     Being seen is scary (and rewarding)

2.)     Beginning things is tough (but worth it)

3.)     I appreciate you.

If you’ve taken the time to read—thank you.

If you’ve taken the time to write—thank you.

And I think I could use some fresh ideas about what to write about.  So if you’re hungry for a post about something in particular, put down your fork, send me an email and let me know.