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“I’m not confident, I’m just courageous.”
I scribbled the words in my notebook, still staring intently at my laptop screen as I watched Caroline Wanga, entrepreneur, speaker, and the CEO of Essence Ventures, speak to my company on Monday.
This was just one of the many Caroline-isms I captured throughout her conversation with our CEO, but it’s the one that kept repeating in my mind as I found myself wobbling amidst the familiar sensations of nerves, anxiety, and uncertainty.
That afternoon, I pulled up my presentation again, scrolling through my slides and notes; whispering the words I’d written as I tried to loosely commit them to memory. Even sitting alone in my office, I could feel the tension in my chest; the pang of nerves that coiled in my stomach and seemed to spread to my limbs.
“Why am I so nervous?” I asked myself, frustratedly, pushing my hand down on my thigh to stop my leg from bouncing.
This was the third time in the last six months I’d be leading a workshop on Inclusive Leadership for a group of MBA students at a local university about 100 miles south of me. I also share presentations at work nearly every day — just the previous week, I’d led a workshop and facilitated a panel discussion with my colleagues. In her newsletter this week, one of my favorite astrologers reminded me that, “Progressing isn’t always linear and ‘regressing’ is a natural part of the ascending spiral of growth.” And yet, I wondered, Shouldn’t I be used to this by now?
In her newsletter this week, one of my favorite astrologers reminded me that, “Progressing isn’t always linear and ‘regressing’ is a natural part of the ascending spiral of growth.” And yet, I wondered, Shouldn’t I be used to this by now?
While work-related presentations rarely make me nervous anymore (admittedly, doing them behind a “Zoom screen” always helps allay some nerves), I’d felt this same tension before each of the previous Inclusive Leadership workshop sessions, and I felt frustrated that the nerves were still there; just as strong as they’d been at the start.
I’d begun to just look forward to when it would be over — when the anxiety would subside, because good or bad, at least I was done — and I hated that feeling. I had so looked forward to this opportunity from the moment a grade-school friend had reached out to tap me for it. I was disappointed that I couldn’t sit with the discomfort of my nerves long enough to enjoy this experience for what it was — for the students and for me!
On a recent episode of The Liz Moody podcast, I heard podcaster and actor, Monica Padman, share a nugget of wisdom gleaned from her experiences with improv: "What's the worst that could happen?"
What’s the worst that could happen? A hypothetical question that never really assuaged my nerves as an anxious and imaginative adolescent, the question echoed in my mind now as I confronted my fears once again.
I tried to articulate what that “worst” was in my journal. Some of the fears that came up were valid — What if the activity doesn’t go well? What if the students are disengaged and don’t want to be there? — but ultimately out of my control. Some of them were in my control — What if I fuck up? What if I look stupid? What if I disappoint everyone? — but didn’t feel like it.
You know me: I want the growth, the experience, the opportunity that comes with feeling the fear and doing it anyway. And also, I want to get to the other side, where things that once unnerved me — like speaking up in a work meeting or sharing the rough drafts of my writing — now feel relatively easy and simple.
I could tell I’d actually started to get to the meat of what was holding me back as I wrote: “I think the feeling of being nervous and uncertain is just physically uncomfortable for me. Basically, I want to rush through the experience so that I can feel better, when maybe I could learn to sit with the beautiful agitation [inside of me] in such a way that I’m not trying to rush through my life whenever I feel it.”
The “beautiful agitation” — another phrase I’d heard in passing while listening to a podcast over the weekend; another phrase I’d scribbled in my notebook because I knew I’d want to remember it. And here I was, just a couple days later, realizing it perfectly described my mental, emotional, and physical state.
I was reminded of a personal development class I’d taken on moving through fear, back before the very first Inclusive Leadership workshop I led. The instructor of that class had shared that, by definition, fear is simply “a motivational state aroused by specific stimuli that gives rise to defensive behavior or escape.”
So, yes, I wanted to escape. Because yes, I felt agitated by my fears; like they were rustling under my skin, rubbing up against all the parts of me that still struggle to make a mistake, to appear silly or stupid, to not get the “A” even 20 years after that grading system was last used to validate my worth.
But fear could also motivate me. I wondered if, instead of wishing that feeling away, I could just let myself feel it; let myself see it for the beauty it might bring me as well.
But fear could also motivate me. I wondered if, instead of wishing that feeling away, I could just let myself feel it; let myself see it for the beauty it might bring me as well.
This morning, before I left to travel down to the school, Caroline’s words rang through my head again like a consistent mantra: “I’m not confident, I’m just courageous.”
It was hard to imagine that the bold woman whose voice rang through my laptop with incessant wisdom the day before was anything but confident — but I believed her. Because I could see that her magnetism came from her authenticity; from being courageous enough to show up exactly as she is, no matter the beautiful agitation that may reside inside of her.
As my train rumbled south along the tracks through Oregon, I promised myself that was all I had to do today too — just be courageous. And sitting here in my hotel bed now, a few hours after the workshop ended, I can tell you that I was.
I also left out parts of my lecture, changed parts of the activity in real-time, and suspected that at least some students were mildly disengaged, but none of it mattered. Or rather, all of it was okay, because I was still there: fully, presently, imperfectly, courageously.
Letting my beautiful agitation just be.
Idea: I suspect we all have a beautiful agitation inside of us sometimes. How can you sit with yours? Maybe it’s through journaling or a couch conversation with a friend or a walk around the block or a day trip to your favorite place (see below!). Maybe it’s a borrowed mantra from another wise human or reading poetry or reminding yourself of how you’ve honored this particular rustling inside of you before? Knowing that this was not the first and will not be the last time I encounter my own fears, I’m trying to remember all the things that support me in sitting with it — and showing up anyway. Maybe this thought exercise will serve you too ❤️
Anecdote: I traveled down to LA a couple weeks back, and I got to meet two of my friends’ new babies (so squishy! so sweet!) and celebrate my mom’s birthday with her! My mom and I drove up to Solvang — a cute, little Danish-style town a little ways past Santa Barbara — for a night, and stopped in Ojai on our way back home the next day. Ojai is just one of those places that has always been magical to me. Probably over a decade ago now, I went there for the first time on a writer’s retreat; the next time I went was with my mom. A month before I separated from my then-husband, I spent a couple nights there alone ahead of my birthday. I’ve had my fortune read by a psychic there. I’ve taken in the entire valley at sunset on top of Meditation Mount there. And I’ve spent more money than I probably should have there — at Bart’s Books and Fig and Tipple & Ramble and Osteria Monte Grappe and and and . . . It’s just a magical place and I love sharing that magic with my mama whenever I can.
Inspiration: “When you realize that the certainty that you are looking for doesn’t exist, you stop seeking control over the future and instead build trust in your ability to handle any future. Because the antidote for uncertainty isn’t certainty; it’s self-trust.” - Sean Einhaus