Featured image: Théo Gosselin
If you weren’t afraid of being rejected, what would you do?
I lower my gaze for a second and take a short, shallow breath. My gut is wrapped in a tight ball.
Mind racing. Heart pounding. So much to say and yet, no words seem to be escaping the gate of my lips.
I look up into his dark eyes;
I would tell you that I think you are special, and be honest about how I’m feeling for you.
I would be more playful with sexuality.
I would turn all the ‘crazy’ ideas that goes through my mind into reality. May it be showing up at your door just to say Hi I was thinking about you, or ask you to come spend the week-end in the wild with me.
I would smoothly engage conversation with anyone I find attractive, intimidating inspiring.
I would be able to speak up every time I disagree, every time I say it’s ok when truly it’s not.
I would be able to openly share the moments when I’ve felt abandoned and hurt. What I fear and what triggers me.
I would be able to tell you how I’d like to be loved.
I would be able to smile and hold someone’s gaze without blushing and looking away.
If there was no fear of rejection, there would only be ease.
Confidence.
Abundance in the way we express and share our love.
But here we are, and I’m measuring the weight of each of my words before letting them slip.
I’m afraid any of them might blow our house of cards.
———
‘What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail’ is a question that has been spinning a lot inside the box of my head recently, which intuitively led me to share many deep conversations on the subject.
One thing got confirmed; we are all SHIT SCARED of being hurt / turned down, and we are subject to failure in all aspects of our life – career, relationships, finance, sports, adventures… Every single human being has insecurities and doubts. If someone doesn’t have any, well they must be a psychopath.
Meanwhile, we are walking down the street chin high, chest proud, trying our best to look like ‘we’ve got this’. We look at people in relationships and believe they have it all figure it out for the rest of their days.
But drop in and ask anyone: How is your heart? You’ll open a Pandora’s box that can lead to endless hours of discussion. It’s a bottomless subject that makes everybody’s soul arch.
Sit in a coffee place, and quietly listen to the conversations that go on around you. 90% will talk about love, connection or recognition. It is that ONE thing we are ultimately longing for.
Just be fucking honest about how you feel about people while you’re alive. -John Mayer
I’m gonna step forward and publicly say what a lot of us only share over coffee:
I don’t “got this”. I’m terrified by the men I intimately desire.
Ask me to do public speaking in front of 500 peeps, no worries, gimme the mic.
Challenge me to get on a plane solo to the end of the world and figure shit out by myself in a foreign language. Sure, at what time is the flight?
Invite me to surf some of the gnarliest waves in the world over razor sharp corals. Yeah, been there, done that, let’s do it again!!!
But ask me to tell a man that I really like him and he’s been on my mind a lot: HELL NOOO!!! Instant anxiety, loss of abilities.
I’m fire in everything I do. They say I’m untameable. Intimidating even.
…Come closer.
I’m more of kitten who has put a lion mascot head.
Some humans have the power to make you soft in knees, act like a 14 years old school girl and infiltrated your thoughts flow. It’s scary. It demands courage to walk towards it knowing they have the power to crush you.
I always keep my suitcase ready. Ready to disappear when the ground starts to tremble. I’ve built walls to protect the softness of my cotton candy heart, that feels and perceives every. single. ripple.
I’m writing you today, because maybe I don’t want to wear this rawwwrrr hat anymore. I’d like to take it off, and put my pink heart at risk.
—
We are all searching for connection, and yet we are avoiding eye contact.
We are all searching to be understood and for people to relate, but we rarely share the real raw truth about our struggles.
We say “it’s all good” when it’s not, we close off, retract and build shield around our heart.
We expect people to know how to help us or love us, but we don’t say we need them, want them.
—
We are not gonna bubble wrap anything here; rejection, failure, face-plants, DO hurt, pinch + burn.
When we feel rejected, our self-confidence gets affected. We obviously make it about ourself, wondering what is wrong with us, what wasn’t sufficient? We feel shame, even humiliated (poo emoji).
Truth is; if you could only see yourself through the eyes of anyone else, you would see that no matter how many rejections you’ve gotten, you haven’t lost any gram of worth.
Remember when someone shared with you the honest and ugly truth about a time they got denied? Did you think they were any less great because some other people had rejected them? No. You thought; ‘Waw, I admire your realness! That motherfucker is clearly missing out on the catch of a lifetime.’
But when it’s us in the eye of the storm, it obviously feels different.
-You don’t understand, MY STORY is worse.
“Studies show that most emotion or thoughts last no longer than 90 seconds unless we attach stories to it. You have the feeling of being lonely— and this will pass through quickly unless you make up a story about how you are lonely because you’re unlovable and worthless and nobody will ever love you and you’re going to be alone forever. When you attach the story, you suffer needlessly and the suffering can linger for years. But you don’t have to choose to suffer this way. Your soul can find peace, comfort, and stillness even in the most difficult times if you’re able to view your negative emotions from the witness position.” -@kissesandmartini
A thought or a feeling is temporary unless you invest energy into it, than it becomes belief, and beliefs are pretty hard to rewire.
8 days of Surf, Yoga & Self-Actualization. It Starts Here >>
Photo Maud Chalard
We all operate through the lens of past stories and hurdles, that pile up on our inner hard drive and affect the way we experience any situation. In critical moments, we get so caught up by our own thoughts/feelings that we tend to forget that it takes two hearts to salsa dance, and that on whichever level it is, the other human is also emotionally involved and equally trying to navigate his own emotions.
We get so clumsy when we are vulnerable…But it’s a necessity. Having someone understand your mind, is a different kind of intimacy.
——
I love being horribly straightforward. I love sending reckless text messages and telling people I love them, and telling people they are absolutely magical humans and I cannot believe they really exist.
I love saying kiss me harder, and you’re a good person, and you brighten my day.
Because one day, I might get hit by a bus.
Maybe it’s weird, Maybe it’s scary, maybe it seems downright impossible to just let people know you want them, need them, feel like, in this very moment, you will die if you do not see them, hold them, touch them in some way whether its your feet on their thighs, or your tongue in their mouth, or your heart in their hands.
But there is nothing more risky than pretending not to care.
We are young and we are human and we are beautiful and we are not as in control as we think we are. We never know who needs us back. We never know the magic that can arise between ourselves and other humans.
We never know when the bus is coming.
-Rachel C. Lewis.
——
In our personalities, we all have a different threshold of how we handle discomfort; this largely determines the limits of what is possible in our life. Do you keep walking when your heart starts to BANG in your chest or do you normally pull back and say: enough! enough!…?
You get in life what you have the courage to ask for. -Oprah
When we risk, leap, engage in something that feels terrifying, the hardest moment is always just before we start. You breath in and and lean forward. Then, one word at the time, one move at the time, we make our way through. We flow into the moment, as gracefully as we possibly can, it’s already happening…. This is the only way to free ourself from the anxiety of unknowing.
There is the jump, and all it’s awkwardness, there is the space after, where things have been said and done and we are standing on the other side. The minute, hours, and the days after, where we step outside, look at the world, and realize that the earth hasn’t stopped spinning, even for a millisecond.
The people have kept walking. The birds kept singing. The wind kept blowing, and the sea kept doing its thing.
We inhale, and realize we are still breathing. Ah! Life is going on…
We made it through a vulnerable moment, and this is something to be proud of. Plus a part of us has grown; we could jump again, if we had to, knowing that the landing might not always be smooth, but we surely won’t die on the impact.
What we had first imagined has an end, is actually a new beginning; we have just stepped into the next floor or level of our life course…
Now let me leave you with this: If you were convinced deep in your bones that you are worthy, lovable and an unfiltered amazing human being, what would you do differently today?
Well, you are.
Yours always, E. xo