My Sacred Scared

I am so thankful to bloggers like Glennon MeltonDoyle.  Mostly because I feel like she says all of the things that I’m afraid to say out loud.  I’m afraid to admit that I’m self-centered enough to believe that people do things, not for their own personal benefit, but to harm me.  I, too, feel like people are pointing their avocado at me.

She started this Sacred Scared series at about the same time that I realized I needed to write more.  So, I thought this was a perfect place to start.  Although, now I’m sitting here trying to think of my most vulnerable, messy fears and insecurities, and, still, trying to think of the pretty spin I can put on it, so I don’t look like a lunatic.  I think I clearly missed the point.  So, here goes:

I spend a lot of my day thinking about how I’m viewed by other people.  Yes, I know we all do that.  But I’m pretty sure mine takes the cake.  Here’s a quick example:  I don’t go inside fast food restaurants.  Don’t get me wrong, I eat fast food all the time.  More than a normal person probably should.  But, always drive-thru.  Even if I’m on a road trip and use their restroom.  I will still leave the restaurant after using the restroom and then go through the drive-thru.  Why?  Because I’m convinced that everyone in that restaurant will listen to my order and then stare at every imperfection on my body and think “Well, no wonder she looks like that, look at what she’s eating!”.  This makes my husband crazy.  He doesn’t like to eat in the car, especially if we have the time to go inside.  But, God bless him, he does it.  He’ll even sit in the parked car in the restaurant’s parking lot and eat with me, just so I can avoid going into the restaurant.  Let’s ignore that fact that everyone else in the restaurant is eating just as poorly as me.  There are no super healthy, skinny women hanging out in McDonald’s just so they can judge the orders of the people who go in there.  And, I know that logically.  But thinking about saying my order out loud and carrying it to my table for the whole world to see makes my heart pound out of control and my breathing shallow.

In a lot of ways, I have grown out of my high school insecurities.  I can leave the house without makeup on now (let’s not get crazy though, only for quick trips and when I’m guaranteed not to see anyone I know). I can look at myself in a mirror in a public place without worrying that everyone in there is thinking “Why is she bothering to look?  She already knows she’s ugly.” I have a husband who loves me and tells me I’m beautiful every day.  I’m a confident, hard-working, intelligent woman.  But I am also a woman who considers every single word she is about to say before she says it, just to be sure it comes out the way I want it to.  I never understood people who just said things without thinking.  I hear people share their embarrassing stories of speaking without a filter and it baffles me.  Didn’t you practice all of your words in your head first?  Didn’t you think about your inflection and which words to emphasize before even opening your mouth?  Didn’t you weigh the risks of saying this word instead of that word? 

In high school, I tried to tell myself that everyone else in high school was so worried about how they were perceived that no one was even thinking about me.  As an adult, I tell myself that people have far more important things to think about than my wearing the wrong outfit or my hair not being perfectly in place.

I hate how self-centered this part of me is.  I hate that I can’t get through a day without worrying about how I’m perceived.  I hate that I can’t do the things that make me feel good for fear of being judged.  I hate how hard I have to work at being perceived as better than I actually am.  I hate thinking about how one day I may have a daughter, and how the hell am I going to teach her to be the opposite of me, because I wouldn’t wish these insecurities on anyone. 

As a feminist, I am fully aware that this part of me sucks.  On principle, I believe that my looks do not affect my value as a person.  I believe that it is my strength, my love for others, my actions that define me, and not my appearance or my weakness for McDonald’s cheeseburgers.  I just wish that part of me was a little louder.

I like to end my blog posts on a positive note, but that’s not really the point of this exercise.  In my opinion, the point of this exercise is to share with everyone where my insecurities lie, to open up my vulnerable side so that hopefully others will be able to admit to their insecurities.  Because, even though I fear judgment in my every action, I still show up, every single day.  Even though I’m horrified at what I imagine my classmates must think of me when I don’t feel perfect, I still go to school, I still study, I still work my butt off to get the good grades that I deserve for all of my hard work and intelligence.  I’m hoping I can keep writing posts and putting myself out there because I think the more I do that, the more my insecurities melt away.  I hope to post more things about myself and my life, even though my stomach is in my throat at the thought of publishing this post today.

I would also like to end this with some words Glennon provided when she started this series on her blog:

        “**NOTE** We hear a lot lately about the importance of being vulnerable in front of others, but we haven’t been taught how to respond to someone else’s vulnerability, so I’ll be offering suggestions about how to receive vulnerability during this series. Here’s the first one: When someone lets you into her Sacred Scared – she is showing you her messy insides NOT because she wants you to fix it, but because she trusts you enough to let you know the real, true her.

Imagine that you have a new friend that you just love, and she’s coming to your house, and you finally liberate yourself enough to skip the panic-clean before she arrives. You decide that you trust her enough to walk in and see your messy house and you just KNOW that she will GET IT. She will LOVE that you just Let It Be for her. But she walks in and instead of flopping down on the laundry covered couch, she starts cleaning up the mess. Your mess is making her too uncomfortable. She starts to FIX IT instead of appreciating your mess as a trust offering. How do you feel about that?

Let’s not try to fix each other’s Sacred Scared, if we can avoid it. The people in this series are letting you in to see their Real, Beautiful Mess. Let’s not try to fix them, because they don’t need to be fixed. Neither do you. Let’s just try to find some comfort and love and maybe even Me Too in the offerings.”