Erin Lucie

If I had to choose a word that accompanied my weekend, I might choose Chaos.

What had been a long looked forward to weekend with people I hold very dear to my heart, in a city I adore, quickly became a weekend bookended by delayed, cancelled and diverted flights, long queues, misinformation, frustrated travellers and late nights.

Exhausted tears rushed to my eyes as homebound and 30,000 feet in the air we were informed that our plane wasn’t going to land at our destination but return to where it came from. My head throbbed as I burdened myself with the thought of the responsibilities I would, unintentionally, be neglecting by not arriving. My soul withered as I stood in line anticipating another late night paired with a pre-dawn start in order to reach all the expectations I had put on my shoulders.

But as it became clear that I would not be making it back home during work hours, I was forced to breathe. To accept that I needed rest and allow myself to take it.

So, today, that’s what I’m doing. Slowing down. I even watched the train I was supposed to be on trundle past me just to continue enjoying the peace of the train station made quiet by the hush of midday in the suburbs.

Now, if you’re like me, maybe you forget to stop. Maybe you think your world will implode if you don’t tick every box or meet all your self-imposed expectations.

The truth is, it won’t.

But. It will. If you continue to push yourself to the precipice of breaking. It will if you don’t learn to listen to your exhaustion and know when to ignore the lies it tells about your fears and insecurities.

I know it’s hard to believe the truth when it seems easier to collapse into the lies – but chaos will always be a companion in this life and learning to step back, breathe and rest will always lessen the burden of its friendship.

You feel dried up. As though you are a plant that sat too long in the sun and surrendered its vitality to the solar giant in the sky. A small and shrivelled remnant of what you once were.

You try to find ways to make yourself look and feel alive. You do it by doing empty things and having empty conversations – but all you’re doing is pouring air out of a watering can and hoping it will do the same as water. You can’t deny the colour draining from your blossoms, or the cracking and curling that you’ve begun to see at the edges of your leaves.

You wonder what will happen to you now and then realise, as wilted things often do, that maybe you don’t even care. If your leaves fall in exhaustion to the ground, so what? If they brown and decay and return to dust, what will it matter?

Every now and again, there are drops of water. A kind word, a smile, a job well done, a good idea, a phone call, a hot bath, a good book. Small things that brighten your colour ever so slightly.

But it’s never enough. The colour fades again, the leaves continue to dry. You turn your thoughts to the ground. The soil is dry and grey. All this time, you thought your flowers were the source of your beauty and success, your leaves the source of your strength. But now, as your roots fumble and clamber for something to hold on to, you realise that the source of your life was always in the ground. Your roots try to grab a hold of the life, but they’re too weak. Too dry. And most of all, too shallow.

You whimper with regret and look to the sky. The ferocity of the sun has disappeared behind ominous clouds blackening the sky. A rumble peals out from the heavens. You tremble as the sound echoes through the air.

This is probably the end. Weak roots, faded flowers, leaves that snap under pressure. There is no hope. You bow your head and await your sentence.

You are struck by a raindrop. The blow is stinging and unforgiving. The drops come faster and harder, until all you know is the roar of torrential rain and the crushing weight of it as it falls like a river from the clouds.

You are certain you’ll be swept away. Your weakness deserves nothing less. You know nothing but fear and loneliness, but you endure the relentless assault, waiting and expecting your broken pieces to be caught up into an ceaseless, empty vortex.

But somehow, in the moment you least expect it, the clouds break, and instead of being caught in a maelstrom, you are caught in a beam of sunlight now softened by the passing of the storm. The rain slows until the only reminder of it ever having been is the steady, calming sound of glistening droplets falling from eaves and branches.

In that moment, you feel the whole earth sigh a deep exhale of relief and renewal. You feel it in your roots first. Though still weak and small, they no longer fumble to find the life they so desperately sought. They stretch deeper and hold more strongly to the newfound richness in the soil.

The roots deliver new life. It pulses through your withered soul. Your petals open with more colour and vigour than you ever remembered. Your leaves unfurl, stronger and larger than you ever thought possible.

In awe, you wonder at the thing you once were, the hardships that brought you into this new experience of life and you make a promise to always be grateful for the storms. To let your roots grow deeper, always feeding from the earth made abundant by the rain.

Emotions are weird.

I know that’s not the most intellectual sentence I’ll ever write, but I feel as though it can hardly be faulted for its truth.

On Saturday I got up, got dressed and headed off to church. The day was beautiful – filled with the brightness of a blue sky amplified only by the brilliance of the unveiled sun. After church I spent the afternoon in great company. I was content, happy even.

Eventually I went to go home. But instead of turning right towards the fastest route, I wrenched my steering wheel to the left and headed to the river. Upon arriving I unexpectedly met some friends, enjoyed a short walk and then settled down on the wharf with a notebook and a pen to absorb the sensations of sitting by the river at dusk. As I wrote, I felt slightly melancholy and wistful, but again, those feelings were nested in contentment.

I came home. I was tired, slightly hungry but I drifted around my house for a while doing odd things here and there and then in a strange moment I looked at a patch of carpet between my couch and my bookshelf, slumped to the ground and began to cry. I cried about the division in our society, I cried about how tired I was, I cried about my relationships, and I simply cried for the sake of crying.

Can I repeat it? Emotions are weird.

I can remember a time not too long ago when this sudden outburst would have confused me and distressed me even further, but no longer.

Let me explain.

I’m nearly at the end of a school term.

Lots of things are going on. Preparation for the school musical has moved into top gear. Efforts to give and complete assessment tasks are becoming frantic. Thoughts of planning for next term are beginning to peck away at the sanity. Tidying of classrooms has to be complete so that the carpet can be replaced. Amongst it all there’s the continual trying to maintain some structure and routine so our students have some sense of normalcy to exist within so they don’t go crazy also. And like everyone else, the demands of day to day work life are balanced against all the other facets of life – maybe faith, or relationships, or hopes and dreams and plans for the future.

Of course, when lots of things begin to pile up things tend to fray. The nights get later, the snooze button gets more love, patience wears thin, health choices become poor, hormones want to play, the house starts to get messy, and thoughts and feelings that little bothered me before become giant mountains of doom – demanding my mind’s attention, clambering to be heard, poking holes in the government that allows my rational mind to preside over my irrational mind.

What I have slowly come to accept is that, naturally, in these times, emotions run high. All the emotions. The good, the bad. They all fight for their place in the spotlight. And their little war sometimes manifests in day or a week, maybe even a month of emotional highs and lows. From laughing hysterically at videos of cats being scared, to tearing up over a story of someone getting a surprise puppy, to sobbing on the floor wondering why the world seems to be imploding.

So, what have I come to know?

This is a normal experience.

And for these times, I have taught myself a simple phrase:

This too shall pass.

It’s one of the hardest truths to believe, but when you’re collapsed on the floor in the foetal position, sometimes it’s the only thing you have to hold on to. They are the words I’ve found that allow you to exist in the darkness of a moment of despair, yet each word pricks the darkness, creating pinholes of light from the world outside the gloom.

Emotions, I think, will always persist to be ‘weird’. They are an essential part of our human make-up, conversing and responding to everything that goes on around us. They will, occasionally, be heightened at the most inconvenient times, arguing and shouting through the clamour of life. But in those moments when the walls fall down and you are completely overcome, allow yourself to be human, allow yourself to breath, to cry, to grit your teeth and to say:

This too shall pass.

I am a teacher. Well, at the time of writing this, I’m what they call a graduate teacher, a glorified probationary period that you exist in before you are accepted into the fold of fully registered teachers.

In Victoria, to exit this stage you must complete an inquiry project based on an aspect of your teaching practice with a goal to enhance student learning and demonstrate that you are a reflective teacher.

As a part of this process I have been subject to a number of visits from a member of our organisation’s state office, with the purpose of observing my teaching practice in order to provide feedback to enhance my performance and give me information to include and reflect on within my inquiry report.

The person who comes to observe me is one of the loveliest people I have ever had the pleasure to know. She is generous in her praise and gentle in her critique. But after her visit today, I found that I had learnt a far more valuable lesson than I had ever gained from any of her visits previously. It was a lesson I thought I already knew, but one I learnt all the same.

I have always been a reflective person. I wouldn’t say that I particularly enjoy the process of reflecting and addressing the shortcomings and deficiencies that come with reflection, but I advocate for its necessity. In short, before today, I felt comfortable in my ability to reflect and improve.

And then I sat down for my post-observation feedback conversation.

The praise that had already come my way based on the lesson that I had taught was generous and encouraging. As our conversation commenced the praise continued, I had yet to hear a comment of constructive criticism. And I had one single, fleeting moment where I thought to myself…

I did it. I made it. I’m here now. I have climbed the mountain, placed my flag at the top and I’m here to stay.

The moment vanished, because the suggestions, couched in the utmost kindness and respect, inevitably came.

Next time…

Have you thought about…?

I would like to see…

I turned around on my mountain and looked up. Yes, I had climbed a mountain, but I now stood in the shadow of another. I allowed myself a moment of bewilderment.

I thought I had made it. I thought this was the top.

Oh Erin. Proud, silly, naive Erin.

Somehow, somewhere I had let myself believe that there was a finish line, a top of the world, a tumble of whimsical, synthesised notes that dissolve into a flashing ‘Game Over’ screen.

Of course, that’s not reality. In life there is no finish line, there is no top of the world, there is no game over. It’s just the next race, the next mountain, the next level.

In that moment, though slightly deflated, I saw why life is so brilliantly exciting.

As in my experience, it is possible to fool yourself into believing that there is some level of completion in life, that reflection is only useful as a means to an end, but that, I realised, is the surest way to stagnate. It is the surest way to determine whether you flourish or fail.

And what I learned in that single moment was that growth is unlimited.

There is no ceiling. No highest mountain, or furthest race, or final level.

How far you can grow is limited only by you.

As I sit on my couch in 2017, newly turned 25, an age I erroneously assumed was the magic age for life to start making sense, I find myself in that perfect moment to reflect on a lesson from the past.

So let’s take it back to 2013. It was the year I turned 21. I was a student studying a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Teaching, majoring in both English and Music.

The year started out promising, but it turned out to be a tough year.

A standard subject load at college was four subjects per semester. I was doing five and a half.

The subjects I was taking were either heavily academic or heavily practical. I was also quite involved in the Music Department. I worked there and had a commitment to the choir.

Furthermore, I had said yes to being a small group Bible study leader, and found myself making the necessary weekly arrangements for that to go ahead each week. 

To add insult to injury, I had rather appalling – though typical for many other college students I knew – personal habits. I would stay up late, sleep late, eat too much, or not enough, or not at the right times, exercise rarely and procrastinate frequently.

I was also in a course of study that I felt, deep down, wasn’t right for me.

I tried to keep all the pieces of my life together, but in the second half of 2013 the inevitable cracks began to show. I couldn’t keep up with my assignments. My energy was waning. I had a piano recital looming for which I wasn’t prepared. I handed over my small group responsibilities to a friend, because attempting to lead a small group and provide a meaningful space to talk about God and study God’s word, when my own spiritual life was tipping back and forth on the edge of a precipice hung heavily on my conscience.

Of course, I was in a privileged situation. There are people who experience more stressful circumstances. There are people who cope under far greater tragedy. There are people who would give so much to have the opportunities I had. I knew that.

Nevertheless, I began to feel anxious.

One evening, as I sat on my bed in my college dorm room, I had the strange feeling that I was being pulled into a vacuum. My head felt heavy, like it was being dragged down to sea by an anchor but also light, like a dandelion being spun mercilessly in the wind. I had to drag in long, exaggerated breaths to feel as though I was getting enough oxygen.

I had had enough exposure to anxiety to understand that I was experiencing some form of an anxiety attack, and in recognising it, I was able to do the only thing I could think of.

I spoke to myself.

I used three very simple words.

You’re okay, Erin.

Over and over I repeated them out loud until I began to feel my mind taking steps away from a canyon’s edge.

Now, I’m a practical person. Around the time of that experience, I realised that I wasn’t coping and I went to the lecturer of one of my English subjects and simply told her that I wasn’t coping. I may have even told her that I had the paperwork for her to sign in order for me to withdraw from the subject.

In an unexpected act of kindness, she urged me to consider taking an incomplete grade for the subject, so that I could continue to attend the lectures as I felt able and complete the assignments before the beginning of the new college year.

It was a great offer, and there was only one main requirement. I was to see a counsellor to verify that I was eligible for an incomplete grade.

It was an offer I was happy to accept.

I only had two sessions but I learned something valuable that I carry with me to this day.

In one of the sessions, the counsellor asked me about my expectations of myself and how I talked and thought about myself. She challenged me to think about how often my self-talk was negative.

I had always thought of myself as a positive person, with a pragmatic outlook on life, but I came to realise that more often than not, my self-talk was negative. I was telling myself things like:

You can’t do this

It’s too hard

You’re failing

You’re worthless

There’s no point anyway.

I was forced to ask myself: Would I talk to someone else like this?

Of course not.

I didn’t say those words to others because I knew of their damaging consequences. And as sure as I knew that those words damaged others, I finally came to realise that they were most certainly damaging me.

From that experience I slowly began to be less of my own worst critic and more kind on my own shortcomings and failures. I began to let myself grow from challenges rather than letting them defeat me. I have since learned that such an outlook is called a growth mindset and it is something I daily challenge my students to apply.

Now, when I look back on that experience what strikes me even more is that I innately knew the power of positive self-talk when I found myself sitting on my bed one evening with my mind fighting the magnetic pull of hysteria, repeating the words: You’re okay, Erin.

I have used those words many times since then, finding them the most comforting out of my slowly expanding library of positive self-talk.

They are the words that acknowledge that, yes, things are not perfect, but there is hope they will get better.

And what I’ve found is that fancy words aren’t needed to pull you up from bad place.

Just simple, authentic words, spoken often:

You are loved.

You will get there.

You will be okay.

On the 10th of July, 2017 my family and I visited Port Arthur.

Port Arthur is famous for being the historic site of a penal colony established in the 1800s and is a popular tourist attraction in the state of Tasmania.

The site boasts well-preserved ruins of its historic architecture, and the buildings all have a rich and fascinating history that sheds light on the convict history of Australia.

All this was what we expected as we embarked on a trip to Port Arthur and began to wander the ruins.

What I did not expect was the sobering visit to the location of the Seperate Prison.

The Seperate Prison of Port Arthur can only be described a bleak and oppressive place.

It stands on a rise, large, white-walled and domineering as it looks over the port and lawns below. 

The cloud of grey that descends as you enter cannot even be quietened by the juxtaposition of the invasive chatter of other tourists who have blatantly ignored the sign upon entry that encourages visitors to be silent and experience the place as the prisoners may have.

The Seperate Prison was built between the years of 1849 and 1850. Each man sent to Port Arthur under a criminal sentence was assigned time in the prison depending on the severity of their crime.

The prison was designed to be used in accordance to the ‘seperate system’, a relatively new prison system in its time. The theory behind the system was that solitary confinement was more effective in reforming criminals than that of corporal punishment — mandatory solitude would force captives to be introspective and repent of their crimes. Silence, isolation, work and religious instruction were forced upon the prisoners.

The cells held a single man, separated from the other inmates by a thick door and walls.

They were not permitted to speak. Twenty-three hours of the day were spent in total isolation. One hour was given for exercise that also occurred in seclusion. Upon exiting their cells for exercise or church, prisoners were required to wear a mask that covered their face.

Prison staff spoke to each other in sign language and wore cloth soled shoes to minimise any noise. Even the chapel was constructed in a way that prevented communication. Tiered platforms were broken into single stalls in which prisoners were stood and were enclosed.

It was being in the chapel that made my stomach tighten and bile rise in my throat. I stood in closed stall and felt the silence and the shame and the separation of someone forced to cover his face and live in total isolation. I felt the anger and the injustice of a man who knew his crime did not fit his punishment. I felt a vestige of the madness that descended upon the men who would have stood in seclusion, forced to listen to the words of God as they were deformed and twisted in order to break down the soul of a man instead of lift and free it as intended.

The poem I have written is a response to that experience.

It is an apology for the injustice.

It is the shedding of tears for those men, and for anyone who has ever felt alone.

______________________________

Separate Prison

For the crime of desperation he was sentenced.

Captive in a place of separation.

There solitude and silence was the penitence for sin.

Personality: A disease. A mask prescribed to extinguish individuality.

So, all that made him singular for justice was concealed.

Invisible, forgotten.

His existence? An abomination.

He: A husk. A faded apparition.

Insanity was spawned in the absence of connection.

Now his memory only lives because he was forsaken.

I’m a primary school teacher. I have 18 beautiful little souls in my classroom, each whose existence I cherish, but what I see play out in the classroom and the playground worries me.

From the lips of young boys I frequently hear: “I hate girls.” “I don’t want to sit next to her, because she’s a girl.” “Girls suck.” “Girls are bad.” “Ewwwww, girls.” “She has girl germs.” These words are spoken regularly, without regard for who may be listening and often without cause or reason.

Extremely rarely, in my short career, have I ever heard similar words regarding boys from the mouth of a similarly aged girl, and generally not in the same context. If ever I hear it, it is said amongst the confidence of same-sex friends or spoken quietly into the ear of an adult. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, only that in my experience the cases are rare.

With that in mind, I wish I had paid more attention when learning about child development in college. Perhaps if I had been more attentive I would be able to say with some sort of academic credibility that this is just a ‘phase’ that boys go through. Maybe I would be able to say that it is normal and I should be more understanding and lenient on my young charges.

The thing is, even if I had heard that in a lecture theatre, I don’t think I would have been able to accept it. I recoil from the idea that one should tolerate boys talking to and about girls or anyone, regardless of gender, no matter how ‘developmentally’ normal the behaviour be.

Words have power, and words can start a war that begins to play out inside a girl’s mind when those words are spoken in her hearing.

If a girl is lucky, she will be surrounded by family and friends who love her and tell her how important she is. Hopefully they will reassure her that those words are untruthful and that she is not defined by those words.

If a girl is not lucky, those will be the words that will begin to shape her. She will see herself as being something less, and for no other reason than the fact that she’s a girl.

I do not want that to be the reality for any girl who passes under my watch.

I know what it is like to have that quiet, nagging feeling that I am somehow less just because I’m a woman. But I also know what it feels like to be empowered by the people around me, people who tell me often that I am important and valuable because I am a woman, helping to silence my doubts.

So, let’s teach our girls that the negative words they hear about themselves are nothing but cheap lies and let’s teach our boys that building people up makes you more of a man than your muscles.

I’ve begun this thing… a little writing thing.

I started it because I love writing.
I started it because writing feels good.
I started it because when I write I learn things.
I started it because I’m trying to discover my place in the world.
And ultimately, I started it because it was something that scared me, and continues to scare me.

But this week I got stuck. Even though my brain bubbled with ideas, they all looked flat and lifeless on paper.

I was left to contemplate four words that always like to sit at the back of my mind.

Purpose and passion.
Duty and motivation.

The pondering of four seemingly innocuous words required big questions.

What is my purpose?
What is my passion?
What is my duty?
What motivates me?

I don’t know about you, but sometimes these questions fill me with a slow moving, chest crushing anxiety. My knee-jerk reaction is to throw these questions into a hole and bury them under poorly managed routines, the noise of music or movies or TV, or small hobbies that allow for mindless respite.

Why do I do this? Because these questions ask for so much more than one word answers. They demand self-examination of a most excruciating kind. And, all of them point to an even greater question.

How do I understand the world?

I’ve long tried to answer those aforementioned four questions without reference to my understanding of the world, otherwise known as my worldview, and I’ve found that it simply does not work.

I had been denying my worldview in the posts I was creating because I wanted to create content that was unifying, inclusive and that had no cause to alienate or divide.

I’ve always been a people pleaser, but who was I kidding? I was asking the impossible of myself and, frankly, abandoning the experiences and beliefs that have shaped me into who I am today.

Now, what am I getting at?

Frankly, I’m not entirely sure. But I think it has something to do with fear.

I’ve been afraid to do a lot of things for fear of mediocrity, or failure, or criticism, or of alienating others or myself, and my writing is no exception, but living a life dictated by fear has never been a good way to live.

So, fearful as I am, I am here because I want to open a door to meaningful conversations in a place that is safe and free of judgement, but also honest and unapologetic.

I’ll start.

My name is Erin.

When I watch a sunrise I usually cry, because I feel the inexplicable presence of God whispering into my soul: I gave you life.

When I fill my lungs with a breath of fresh, crisp night air and turn my face to the stars I am confident that life is not an accident.

When I sit in nauseating luxury, and remember the heartbreaking words she has no mother, no father spoken of a 10 year old girl amongst the rice fields of rural Nepal, I know that there is something sick and broken about this world.

When I recall through child’s eyes the images of a skyscraper crumbling amidst a cloud of black smoke I am persuaded that there is evil present, seeking to divide and destroy.

When I see a ten cent coin I am reminded of a train almost missed and the generosity of a dishevelled stranger and I am certain that goodness and selflessness exist to unite and rebuild.

And when I call to mind the photograph of a man whose hands took the life of another, gently holding a child within the walls of a prison, I am convinced beyond a doubt of the impossible truth that someone called Jesus loved us so completely that He gave up a divine throne, became a man, died on a cross, and defeated death so that humanity in all its brokenness has hope of redemption.

This is how I understand the world, this is why I do what I do, I write what I write and I am what I am.

How about you?

I’ll never forget the day I wrote a line to this effect in a journal…

He’s like the air I breathe.

Firstly, yes. I wrote this. About a real human boy, who I liked at the time.

Secondly, I wrote this when I was in high school. I say this so that hopefully we can all forgive teenage Erin for having a moment of hormonal insanity.

Finally, I don’t want the fact that I was a teenage girl writing in a moment of hormonal insanity to be an excuse for the very fact that I wrote it. I say this because I believe the line is an interesting and revealing comment on the matter of fulfilment.

As a matter of curiosity I typed ‘famous love songs’ into Google. I clicked on the first link that directed me to Billboard’s 50 Best Love Songs. I began to look up the lyrics to these songs. My head began to swim with lines like:

My love, there’s only you in my life, the only thing that’s bright. My first love, you’re every breath that I take, you’re every step I make.

I’m everything I am because you loved me.

[I’m] losing my mind, from this hollow in my heart. Suddenly I’m so incomplete.

That’s only three examples from a list of 50. It’s also only three examples from the thousands of other love songs that are out there. I thought to myself, ‘Wow! These words are constantly on repeat, playing quietly in the background, being absorbed into our subconscious!’

We hear these sentiments, not just in songs, but in so many popular films and television shows. A person falls in love, they fall to pieces when the relationship falters and those pieces are only put back together when the couple reunite or another relationship commences.

I thought of all the other examples where I have found those sentiments – in books, in advertising, even in the true stories of the successful couples around me.

I hastily came to the conclusion that society presents us with this invasive idea that being in a loving, romantic relationship will be the only thing that makes you whole.

I was armed and ready. Ready to present my view as black and white. The good vs the evil. The lie against the truth. I was ready to take to the keyboard with all the righteous indignation I could muster.

In fact, I did.

I wrote and rewrote for days, trying to perfect my declaration that you complete you, not someone else. But the more I thought about the topic the more I realised that my black and white view came from a place of anger.

It was anger that came as I mourned for the days I have spent wishing my life away, because it all felt meaningless without ‘someone’. It came as I grieved for the time I have spent ‘self-improving,’ in order for someone else to love me. It came as I remembered the whispers of self-doubt that have infected my mind, telling me I’m not beautiful enough, or smart enough, or talented enough.

It was then that I realised that the enemy of being whole wasn’t someone else.

It was me. 

The lie in question, that someone else completes us, is really a projection of something deeper. At the heart of it, we are told to look at ourselves. Focus on self and find the problem. Focus on your wants, your desires, your needs.

This discovery astounded me. I realised that fulfilment really was found with others. But not in the way I had so long believed and so recently scorned.

So now, if I could say something to my teenage self, I would say this:

Don’t rely on a boy or anyone else to be the air you breathe. Don’t even rely on yourself to be the air you breathe. Look around you. Who do you see? Think of them first. Start to serve and you will learn how to breathe.

I have a lot of interests.

I have an overwhelming love for reading and writing. I have a passion for promoting empathy, faith and positive self image. I’ve always wanted to write a blog or a book. I have a keen interest in social media. I really enjoy hiking and the wonder of nature. I have a deep appreciation for sharing and creating music and how playing the piano helps bring me down to earth when I feel like all my strings have been cut.

I could do any number of things with these interests but I haven’t, because I have a voice inside my head that lives at the front of my mind and constantly whispers:

I don’t know where to start. 

This phrase is a huge glass wall preventing me from trying anything outside of my comfort zone. Through it I can see a world of amazing possibilities, but when I start to lean against it, it shatters into tiny shards of doubts and insecurities that are far more sinister:

I’m afraid of what people will think.

I’m too unfit.

I’m not talented enough.

I’m flawed.

I hate exercise.

I can’t give this up.

I can’t handle rejection.

God’s forgotten about me.

I’m too scared of confrontation.

I don’t want to burn out.

I’m too tired.

I’m too busy.

I’ll just wait for an opportunity.

People won’t like me.

It’s not realistic.

It’s not safe.

I’ll fail.

I’ve tried before and failed.

There’s no point.

I don’t have anything to say.

My opinion doesn’t matter.

I’m content where I am.

I’m not organised enough.

It’s too hard to learn.

And it goes on. And on. And on.

But this is the truth:

Those doubts are lies.
I do know how to start.

With one step.

One change.

One fully committed decision.

It can be a terrifying prospect.

But I’m more terrified of the future that will happen if I don’t step out of my comfort zone and meet my fears head on.

Because in that future there is still a voice in my head and even though it would be pushed to the furthest corner of my mind, it whispers:

I know how this will end.