E032 - How to Put Yourself Out There (Be Authentically Extra)

Would you like to show up more in your world? Do you feel like you might be hiding, but want to put yourself out there? Are you ready to be authentically extra?!

Get ready to stretch the conditioning that keeps you playing small: enjoy the blog or watch the episode!

Hi, welcome to this episode about how to put yourself out there in the world, with full force or with full confidence ! I'm going to say this is not easy. But I'm going to talk about some of the steps that I've gone through and some of my clients have gone through in this act of liberating our voices in the world.

One of the first things I want to say, though, is that a really important first step, is focusing. Getting a little bit quiet beforehand. And knowing what we're going to say and why. So I'm going to just take a little deep breath, as we're hanging out together.

Getting a little bit more grounded, a little bit more present. So I think one of the most powerful things that I've done at times in my life, is get really centered and get really grounded, and consider why I'm putting something out into the world. And so in my course, Awaken Your Radiant Voice, one of the things we work on, is developing what I'd call your pitch. This is kind of positioning statement, or just, "this is what I'm here for", which is part of helping us to arrive in this moment ready to communicate with the world, rather than I think I should be on social media or I should be showing up. Actually this is why I'm showing up.

My work is that the meeting point of awakening and meditation and healing and trauma, and music and singing and voices. right there, there's this meeting point. And that's a bit of my pitch. And knowing my pitch helps me show up in this moment, not really caring, that I'm wearing ridiculous glasses. And the story behind these ridiculous glasses, is really long, but they're actual optical lenses. And right now it feels like I'm in a total fishbowl. And it feels pretty funky. And I was given these while I was really out there, being a rock musician. And I'm wearing them today just to be a little out there to fit in with the message of this video. And to look a little ridiculous.

So this grounding into what am I here for? What am I showing up for in this life? And we don't have to have "a purpose", like (sings) 🎵 I am here to heal the world 🎵

That's awesome if you're here to do that. But just knowing one's WHY helps energy channel, helps us get through the awkward bit when we feel basically afraid. Or when we start enacting what people are going to say in our heads. Knowing why we're here really helps.

And I'm going to say it really levels up, just a little bit more when the reason why we're here isn't just for me. I'm here for me, because me wants more me. And if I can get more me, then I'll be more me. How cool would that be? So yeah, more me!

So for me getting through the awkwardness of putting myself out in the world and putting out a very strong and clear message, which is an unusual message, especially in the initial phases, one of the things that I would keep repeating to myself is,

ONE: is recognizing that it wasn't for me, wasn't just about me, I'm actually showing up to try and help, help clean up, help be of service. Just be a kind of a decent human. And so not positioning it about me, really helped that. Hey, I can't be of service while I'm focusing in on whether they like what I put in my Instagram post.

(Let's take a deep breath)

TWO: from my personal perspective, putting out a very clear consistent message is totally required if you're going to do this. But also really difficult and I want to acknowledge that. It's emotionally difficult to put something new out into the world or to put something that isn't particularly socially acceptable, kind of being healy-holy or putting out a spiritual message or whatever. It's not cool.

So there's nothing for the ego and the ego is going to be taking a bit of a beating potentially, which is not necessarily such a bad thing. And one of the gifts in this, is to begin to let go of one's self image. In other words, what do they think of me? Do they approve of me? Is my post, okay? And this is one of the gifts of showing up and putting something out there, is that if you keep considering what they will think it's very painful.

But through the process of showing up and knowing "I'm doing this... and I'm doing this because it is the right thing for me to do"... Gradually the self image can erode or become less important. In other words "I'm just doing it, I'm just this fool sitting in a seat right now, recording to a video camera that you're watching".

I don't really know if I'm getting it right. But I'm following my heart, and I'm doing my best. And that's as much as I can do. Whether 25% or maybe 50%, or 75% of you who watch this think that I'm an idiot, or whatever. It's not useful for me to process that in my body. I think I might have done that in the past. Or been afraid.

But the more I've done this, the more consistently I show up, the more it is just a kind of an honest moment of putting something out to the best of my ability, and hopefully something that we can share.

So yeah, I've said it a few times: consistency is king in this. Repeated showing up is where the gifts are, and dreaming (and this is a big one that I still do), but I mostly did when I needed more courage. It was: it doesn't matter how ugly this first post is. It doesn't matter how ugly this first video is. Keep picturing yourself in a year's time, in three years time.

Where will you be if you keep showing up? Every week, after a year. And to begin with it was ugly and insecure. And you know the first YouTube video I did took me nine days of anally retentive glory to finish. And it was hard. And it was emotionally painful. I was insecure and frightened. That's it in a nutshell. And so here I am just doing it.

So I better hurry up and get this finished and let the cat in. So – positioning statement, understanding our why and then courageously putting stuff out, in spite of the fear, in spite of the "who, me"?! In spite of the imposter syndrome, which is short for "I don't know enough, "I'm not qualified enough, "I'm not THIS enough, "what will all the people from my past think? "They know me as this, they know me as a copywriter, "they know me as this, "they know me is that, "what if I'm putting out this message, "a much deeper message? "They'll think I'm a fraud"! And we kind of just have to go through that.

Can you imagine, I mean, someone like Donald Trump should feel like a fraud. But he probably doesn't, but any president getting up to be a president, has never done it before this. Standing in front of this wooden dias with like a script in front of them, as the president of the world. And they have to act like they know what they're doing. But they don't really. So they're also making it up. So if they can, we really, really, really can.

And so I suppose the encouragement in this, is to position that why and then get in deep and keep showing up and show up with one's face and show up with one's heart, liberate that voice, so that we can all contribute a bit deeper and maybe more meaningfully and more honestly and authentically in the world. Because there's a lot of sh!t on the internet. And it's kind of nice if a lot of us are putting out what our hearts feel.

I have this little bit of a dream that we can make the world a slightly better place, even by five or 10% or maybe, who knows maybe a bit more. If each of us shows up in the place where our heart is. I think that's it. So thank you for watching.

If you're putting something out into the world, I'd love you to put out what your jam is in the comments. Like "I love doing THIS"! just a short statement of "this is my thing", "this is what I want to show up for" and let's all just say hello to each other, those of us who are reading this and feeling a little called to share more with the world, even though we don't quite know what we're doing. So that would be a treat.

I'd love to see those of you that want to comment. I'd love to see you there and be able to celebrate who you are.

Okay ❤️