It was on a random journaling session that something surprising came to my attention. I, as a private practitioner and a solopreneur, have been dabbling into creating an ecosystem where users can come in and take a dip into the mental health well. However, as my neurons are firing into executing the ideas I have on social media and art, I am facing resistance. Oh, this resistance is huge. It takes me back to the younger years where I was dominated by my college professors who have spent more years in this field than I have. And I go back to being that younger self who would be shaking from the inferiority of being among the masters. “Taking strength from the fact that I love writing and pouring my consciousness onto the blank canvas? Pfff. Please. Your college professor is now an Editor-in-chief of a global academic journal. You think she is going to be pleased with your work? Approve it? Blasphemy.”
Rationally, I understand that it is the voice of my inner critic. It is also my anxiety telling me that I may have to do more to be approved of, that I need to do deep work to come out as a shining outlier. After all, being in private practice means that I said goodbye to being in the mainstream work and networks. My anxiety tells me to make a plan; plans to insert certain exercises that work to keep my intellectual self going strong. Thankfully, as I have been programmed from my childhood to keep practising until I can wow the audience, I think I know exactly what I have to do to be someone people look up to.
But this wasn’t the surprising revelation that blew me away. It was when the characteristic signature of my younger self came out to the surface via journaling. This signature that is still going on as I am working in uncharted territories (meaning that the kind of work I am doing now has not been possible before in my timeline). And instead of looking at all the limitations my younger self carried, I was met with her tenacity to make a space for herself in a highly competitive space. She looked deep at her strengths and resources. She made sure that she invests her time into cultivating her strengths. And with time, the right opportunities started knocking at her door. I look back fondly to how she would not take no for an answer from herself and say yes to new challenges. And slowly but surely, she started to see the benefits of her tenacity in how her peers and her college professors started to see her as well. It started to show in her grades. It started to show in her understanding and joie de vivre for life.
So, as I am now sitting with the contradictions of uncertainty and tenacity, it’s almost like sitting with my younger self. It’s like showing her the possibilities of all that can happen in our mutual future backed by her inner fire that refused to back down because there were others shining far brighter than she felt she was able to at the time.