learning to live out loud.

I’ve lived most of my life as a watered-down version of Courtney.

This has been out of self-protection—stemming from my deep fear of not being liked or from being judged by others.

Because I fear what people might think of me, I silence many aspects of my passions, desires, and happenings.

I recently read Stephanie Foo’s What My Bones Know. Her memoir is one of childhood abuse and the long healing journey of living with complex PTSD. While I can’t even begin to relate to Foo’s experiences—her childhood and adolescence far from my own—I was still able to find little pieces of myself in her story (which is why I love memoir to begin with). On page 51, she writes:

“As I waited for a response, my mind raced so fast it vibrated. I took a shower and tapped my fingernails and paced around, the pitch of the thrum getting higher and higher until an hour later somebody woke up and texted back… Only then did it feel as if I could exhale the tornado of bees that had been thrashing in my lungs. Only then could I exhale this thing I called the dread.”

I stopped when I read this passage. I closed the book and stared into space. I re-opened the book and read it again. I closed to book. I re-opened it and highlighted the passage. Staring into space again, I realized that she had just given voice to this indescribable feeling that I’ve gone through life with.

The dread.

The dread of someone asking me a personal question and me having to decide how much information to divulge. The dread of me disclosing something I’m working on and having to wait for their reaction. How will they receive it? The dread of having to justify myself for wanting to do something. The dread of silence after sending a risky text message. The dread of not being able to read someone’s mind.

It suddenly occurred to me: I’ve let the dread run the show for twenty-nine years.

While I’ve come so far in terms of letting myself be seen in digital spaces, the dread’s voice still wins out when I’m face-to-face with someone.

I have no problem exposing myself here, week after week, on Substack. I have no problem posting silly dancing videos on Instagram anymore. I have no problem showing my face on my stories as I promote my next SoulFlow embodiment class. I have no problem sharing what I’m writing with my virtual community.

But when a colleague asks me, “What do you write?!” at a work dinner, I freeze up. When a colleague says, “I love your Instagram, it always makes my day brighter,” in the hallway, I get super awkward. When a friend asks me to tell her about my memoir over coffee, I can barely find words. When another colleague says during a group round-table, “Wait, you taught a class this semester?!” I suddenly can’t breathe.

There’s a level of remove that exists in the virtual space. If someone doesn’t like my content, they can just unfollow me.

When it’s in-person, I can see their facial expressions. I know exactly how I’m landing with them. There’s no level of remove. And this makes the dread so much stronger.

it’s why I’ve been able to show up online, but I still feel like I haven’t been able to show up fully as myself in-person.

I remember when Adam told his father and his girlfriend that I was teaching a class at Hofstra this semester while we were all at dinner, I wanted to immediately melt into the booth. They’re going to think I’m a weirdo, why would I want to live away from here for the next four months, what kind of over-achiever gets a second job, what if they think I’m trying to run away? I don’t want them to think I’m trying to move back there full-time, great, now I have to explain myself.

The dread makes me feel like I constantly have to justify myself.

I’m so afraid of people not perceiving me in the way that I want, that I try to hid parts of myself and dilute the things that I’m working on so that they aren’t open to interpretation.

But… why?

What if I just let people be curious? What if I just gave them the facts, instead of this filtered and watered-down version of the truth, and let them decide for themselves?

What if instead of downplaying the new things that I’m writing, learning, teaching, working on, or pursuing, I just actually talked about them? What if I could push aside all of the things I don’t want (to seem like I’m too much, to seem like I do the most, to make people feel bad in my presence) and be open to the things I do want (deeper connections, to be understood, to be accepted as me)?

People are going to think whatever they are going to think.

I can’t control that.

The dread tries to tell me that I do have control over it—that I can morph the narrative and massage it into this perfect package that makes everyone like me.

How exhausting.

What if instead of freezing up and giving short, calculated answers, I did the opposite?

what if I shared so much, with such ferocity and honesty, that it opened up new portals, deeper friendships, and new opportunities?

I’ve come so far with sharing, but I still have a long way to go.

It’s what I’ve come to love about life: You never reach “the end” of evolving into the person you came here to be.

Next time you see me in person, please ask me a deep question. I need all the practice I can get. ;)

xx

Court.