picking up the pieces of myself.

Eek! I have something so special to share with you.

A few weeks ago, a friend that I met at a retreat in May 2023 reached out to me to see if I’d be interested in appearing as a guest on her podcast.

My immediately reaction was, HECK NO! …which was quickly follow up by, Welp, that was a big reaction for no reason. Why?

As I explored this knee-jerk reaction, a few things came up. The swirling of thoughts and feelings in my body included:

I’m not interesting enough. I’m not smart enough. I don’t have anything new or novel to share. There’s nothing cool about me. She talks to really badass entrepreneurs and healers and spiritual leaders, what could I add to her audience?

And the body-based fears:

I don’t even know if I can make it through a whole interview without sweating through all my clothes. My face turning tomato red. My voice shaking and cracking. What if I can’t think of anything to say? What if I don’t impress her?

Sigh.

I’ve been working through so many fears of using my voice, of being heard, of allowing people to see me, of not getting caught up in external judgment or validation. I’ve taken all of you along for that journey since I started writing on here in March and yet, my physical reaction to being asked to be on a podcast was a full body NO. I literally started sweating when I read the message and could feel my face turning red.

As I lingered on this, it occurred to me that the universe is a master comedian. Because… talk about the ultimate test. I’ve been pushing and stretching myself to find creative ways to use my voice and here was the pinnacle of that.

It felt uncomfortable as hell, but I knew I had to say yes. Because what she was offering me, at its core, was a gift.

A gift to just speak as Courtney. A gift to just let my words and stories flow through me in real time—unedited, unplanned. It was also a gift to realize that she saw something in me that was worth sharing with her audience. Even though my brain wanted to tell me all the reasons that I wasn’t interesting or cool enough, she was telling me “You are worthy.”

And the universe is funny because just ONE DAY prior to receiving Alyson’s message, I was thinking about how I’m more comfortable sharing when people invite me in—when I am asked questions and when people show a genuine interest in my life. I published a post about this last week, which you can read here. Literally mere hours before I got her message, I was in my head about how I didn’t feel like I shared enough during a recent girls’ trip and how I was feeling upset because I felt like I should have just shared more despite not having clear invitations. Because I really did want to share. But I craved that invitation.

And here was an invitation, placed right in my lap (and my DMs).

Alyson and I didn’t become besties from the retreat. In fact, we didn’t really speak for a few months afterwards. I silently followed along on her Instagram, intrigued and inspired by her journey at a distance, and she did the same with me. We reconnected over a shared interest—Human Design. We sporadically started sharing and chatting more, but it was still a shock to receive this invitation. I told her I was nervous, but grateful, and agreed. We set a date to chat over Zoom a few days later.

Leading up to the conversation, I was torn about planning for it. I could anticipate some of the questions she would ask me from having listened to her episodes, but I always loved the conversational quality of her podcast. It felt disingenuous to plan or sketch out key points.

So, I didn’t. I decided to trust that whatever needed to come through in the moment would come through. I decided not to give myself a safety net. I decided to trust my inner compass. I decided to trust myself.

And as soon as her face filled my laptop screen on Zoom, I was immediately at ease. I had some jitters, but our conversation, which ended up being two hours (half of that not being recorded), flowed so easily. I learned so many interesting things about her, as I’m sure she did with me.

Which serves as a reminder: whether you know it or not, you are inspiring and influencing people each and every day of your life. There are people watching you at a distance, people relying on your energy and messages. I was doing it with her, and she was doing it with me.

And what a gift when our energies got to collide and we connected with each other, as close to in-person as you can be when you’re over 2,000 miles away from each other.

I hope you’ll listen to this podcast episode—which feels more like an energetic exchange than an “episode”—if you feel called to. We talk about losing yourself, finding yourself, and all the things in between. We talk about writing and communities and SoulFlow™ and pushing yourself.

We talk about life and what it means to be an evolving, ever-changing human.

I hope you find something in it that makes you feel less alone. I hope you find something in it that you linger on, just for a little.

Thank you for being in my world. And I invite you to check out my friend Alyson’s world, too! You can find her on Instagram at @alysonhaineswellness and listen to But What If You Did? wherever you get your podcasts.

xx

Court