Being uncomfortable.
That is my inspiration for today. Sometimes, I put walls up. *snort* yeah ok all the time I put walls up. Distance between myself and others. I don’t generally like to draw attention to myself. I am definitely not comfortable if I am put on display and if I have to do public speaking it will only be a very brief or specific reason that I do it. It’s not to say that I have never been on stage before – I have certainly, many times. I did theatre in university, dozen or so plays in high school and elementary school, even sang on Parliament Hill as a child. I am not sure what happened when I got older, but after having children I withdrew from the stage for the most part. Now, it makes me uncomfortable to be front of house (unless I am doing something for work for example, it still makes me uncomfortable but it’s for a good cause so I do it).
Today, I found out some news that made me very uncomfortable. Something that I did for a tv program aired several times – I didn’t know it was going to air more than once. It’s not a huge day (deal, I meant deal) – it’s actually very good for work, great exposure, but I really wish someone else was doing the interview instead of me. I was mortified when staff and clients came up to me to say they had seen me on the weekend (one in Canadian Tire of all places on all of their TVs) it got me to thinking about walls and barriers that I put up that keep me from being creative. Ok, sincerely it got me thinking about how much I don’t like people watching me now, and how I used to not care so much. I will spare you the mental mumbojumbo and musing, but it was a slow change for me from one extreme to the other. Being uncomfortable is a signal. It’s a signal, a sign, a good ole slap in the head to pay attention. It screams, “Time to dig in and explore”. No more time for hiding. I know this. I know this from my dharma studies, I know this from my work with Sandra Jensen and Diving Deeper Writing workshop. Heck I even know from recent events that I need to tackle this head on. It, my gut tells me, will inspire a great more from me creatively. Be very freeing. I can feel that much.
For some reason, the children’s song “Going on a lion hunt” is playing through my head now.
“Going on a lion hunt, going to catch a big one. I’m not scared. Uh oh, there’s mud ahead. Can’t go over it, can’t go under it, can’t go around it, gotta go through it.” … ah yah. Let’s go! I have my work cut out for me 😉
lei fraser 