Dear Writer,
This week appears to be imposter syndrome week on Dear Writer. Good. I love a theme.
In season 1 of my podcast Big Strong Yes, my co-host Dr. Kelly Jones and I talked about the voice inside that tells us we’re not good enough, which is quickly followed by the “who do you think you are?” voice, and between these two inner voices, there is often absolutely no daylight in which you get to just be what you are and that’s okay.
It’s important that you make some of that daylight for yourself. How you do it is gonna be individual to you; I can’t tell you how you make your daylight, I can only tell you how I do it, and maybe that will help you find a way to make your own.
For me, I worry about not being good enough all the time. That I, because I was born an inherently deficient human being (a belief that came from being emotionally and physically abused as a child) I have to be better than everyone at everything or I’m not good enough. But that’s impossible, because you never get good at anything unless you are willing to be bad at it first.
That’s why I was never able to finish a novel until Nanowrimo founder Chris Baty told me to write crap. It is directly because of that advice that I published 12 novels, won awards, and hit the NYT list. His permission to be bad went right to my fear and my false belief and created some daylight for me.
Now, I still have to struggle to make that daylight for myself, because the tear in my belief system that I made always wants to close. My job is not to be better than anyone else, but to be strong enough to keep tearing away at false beliefs that limit what I’m able to do.
Rip those false beliefs of your own. Find your daylight, and dance in it.
Everything,
L