Pink Moon (Part Four): The Wound of Embarrassment

[windinthemaples]

My second wound is simple and yet profoundly limits my life. I do not want to look foolish and so I avoid trying things that I think I won't be good at or that I don't already know how to do. I allow myself no time for beginner's mistakes and learning curves. I, too often, choose not to take the risk because embarrassment and the potential for ridicule looms larger in my head than any potential benefits. That is no way to live. That's that squirrely intruder again, making past embarrassments seem monumental and potential future embarrassing moments even worse!

In the past, this afraid-to-look-ridiculous has kept me from:

-auditioning for solos, despite having a very good voice
-dancing where anyone could see me, outside of those show choir group performances
-playing table games at a casino with a real, live dealer
-teaching classes
-playing sports
-attempting art
-yoga
-going to the gym
-aerobics/fitness classes
-celebrating my birthday
-cultivating friendships; inviting people I don't know well to get together
-wearing skirts or other pretty and/or impractical clothing
-interviewing for better than minimum wage jobs
-inviting people into my home
-cooking for an audience
-answering the phone
-parading around naked
-wearing shorts that show off my uncommonly pale legs
-wearing sandals
-doing my hair or makeup
-going someone I might get lost
-parallel parking
-learning to drive a manual transmission car
-changing a tire/adding air to a tire
-practicing my foreign language skills in the hearing of others
-admit, where I fear strong debate or backlash, being a witch
-go to the spa
-go swimming
-(I'm going to come back, edit, and add more to the list as I think of any).

My inhibitions would love for me to sidestep this issue entirely, but I know that I have some unearthed talents in all these things I've never attempted. Just imagine, I finally learned at age 31 how to hula hoop! It was fun and I might have looked laughable but who cares? (Okay, I care.) But if I get over the wound of insensitive people from my past making fun of me and tormenting me, then maybe it would start to not matter if people giggle when I don't quite get it right the first time. Maybe. I need to start doing things that feel emotionally risky to me. It is the only way to put those demons of self-doubt to rest. What's the worst that can happen, realistically?

Comments

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Reading this is like reading posts made by another part of my brain, I swear. This is one of my hugest issues, it stopped me going back to university despite being assured I pretty much had a job. It stopped me from teaching meditation and totem animal groups. Swimming. Singing where anyone can hear me, despite being able to sing.

It's crippling. I mean just... crippling.

And yet so hard to fully and freely overcome. I wish I knew what to suggest, but I've been struggling with this one all my life, myself. The only place I don't seem to have it...is my art. I think I hit a point where it was like, 'I don't care what you think, I have to do art, the gods aren't giving me a choice, to suck it.' Which isn't very nice but... I had to do it for my soul, which meant it didn't matter if it was bad or good, it had to be done. And eventually, that sort of inured me to criticism, or my Mum saying things like 'erk!' when she saw a new piece.

Now to translate that into the rest of my life!