Show Up: Like, Right Now

I am getting a new job! I am learning how to change my own oil! I am starting that yoga class! I am remodeling my own kitchen! I am learning what Snapchat is!  I am making change and moving forward. But first, I should probably take that class to brush up my coding skills to improve my resume; I should probably wait until the snow is gone; I could definitely lose five pounds; then, for sure, onward! Oh shoot, I am little anxious, maybe I will work on calming down first. I don’t want to be “that person.” You know, the one that hasn’t completely reinvented themselves before attending to self work? Ya, them. I don’t want to be them. show up.

So many of us hesitate to work on change without first, changing. We are stuck in a cycle of needing to be different in order to attend to making a shift in our lives. The result? An unending cycle of self-judgment of “never enough, not quite yet, not good enough.” We create self-acceptance by by showing up just the way we are right now. That means showing up: frumpy, scared, angry, with opinions, confused, depressed, with high expectations, with anxiety, with shame, overweight, happy, messed up, sad, underweight, with curiosity, or any other combination of feels and traits.

Allow the things you have wanted in life to be accessible. We don’t need to be fearless, confident, clear headed, regulated, and already changed to initiate change. We can take action despite outcomes being uncertain. We can move the things we tend to hide out to the open. When we show up as our genuine selves we increase self-acceptance as there is less to “hide” from. We are not alive to hide from life but to experience it.

So show up just as you are to that Dad’s with Beards who Brew group, or that discussion on the long term environmental impact of pencil erasers, or the conversation with your grandchild who is showing you what it means to be “basic.” Whether you enjoy it, hate it, learn new things, feel brain cells dying just for doing, it’s all part of the same process: life.

Written by Emily Carlson, MA

Photo credit: pexels.com