Hi friends —
Wow wow wow what an eclipse season that was. Over here at Womanhood, we’ve been blowing up our life one pink glittery bomb at a time, and are trusting it will be better for it.
As blind faith leads to lightning bolt realizations, this month Kelly is sharing a very personal insight around releasing anxiety given the ever changing landscape that is her life at the moment. Even more so — she’s asking you all for permission to be more of herself. Because as we know, authenticity is what builds the most rewarding of connections.
This newsletter is for those of you who find yourself projecting an image of yourself for groups of people around you. It’s also for those of you who feel emotions and don’t always know what to do with them.
Read on, because by understanding how Kelly shifted from panic to possibility… you might realize you have an opportunity to deepen your relationships, too.
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PS: Kelly has re-vamped her website given the eclipse season juice. Have a browse of it (and her newest Reinvention Coach AI tool) if you fancy!
You-make-me-feel…. so emotional
Hello friends!
Today’s newsletter might be a quite niche topic…
…or it might be something all of you beautiful women experience 🤣 I’m looking forward to finding out.
Either way, I write this newsletter for me, and I share it for you. So for your next peek into Kelly’s crazy little brain, I ask you not to judge 🙈
Because honestly, this one is really hard to write. It hits a core truth that I hate to admit (and also am slightly ashamed to).
In a coaching session recently, I explored stress related to my upcoming move and travels. Midway through the session, my coach asked me “Kelly, what makes you panic when plans are vague or unexpectedly change?”.
It was a really good question, as the simplest ones often are.
She prodded, “Kelly, do you panic because you fear disappointing a family member, partner or friend if your travels didn’t appear to go smoothly?”.
And at least that was an easy answer — because it definitely *wasn’t* about failing my inner circle.
As soon as she asked me, I realized… it was the opposite.
It was about failing all of those who know me… but didn’t really know me.
The people who I know look up to me. Who see me without all of my flaws. Who only see the wise & relaxed portion of my persona.
Because I — believe it or not — am wildly neurodivergent underneath my cool calm & collected shell.
It’s a label that doesn’t define me, but it does demand a lot of me.
More than anything, I have a lot more emotions (& a lot less dopamine) than the neurotypicals of the world.
We’ll leave the dopamine for a second, and focus on the emotions. Because for my entire life… people would have said I’m fairly emotionless. When that’s really just not the case.
I’ve learned to suppress my emotions from a young age, knowing that outbursts were never well received. I also find any big emotions uncomfortable, as I’m so unpracticed in handling them.
And so going back to my coach’s question — when my travel plans feel unclear or are constantly changing … I find it really hard to name what I’m experiencing.
In hindsight, it’s obviously fear. (In the moment, the clenching of my teeth and the projection of my stress should have communicated it pretty loud and clear!!!)
Zooming out, *why* do I find it hard to name the fear?
This is what my coach so elegantly led me to realize.
It’s not that I’m afraid of the fear. Or the changing plans.
It’s that I’m afraid of people knowing that I have fear.
That I experience overwhelm.
That I get frustrated.
That I have days where I need to hide from the world and all of its noise.
THIS would be failure, because in that deep dark corner of my heart I let very few (ok, no one) see… I fear rejection as a result of being “too much”.
Even more so — I fear this type of rejection, as I believe my greatest purpose in life is to show people that there is another way.
To be a role model for the path less traveled.
To help people believe that they too might want to live differently.
So every time I experience an emotion that I feel might put someone off of the road less traveled… I compulsively (& in a panicked manner) attempt to do something — anything — to get rid of that emotion.
And by writing this I now realize, that actually me having emotions might make the road less traveled feel even more accessible? (You tell me, ladies!).
Regardless of if I receive a flood of replies telling me to put my real emotions on display or not, in the days leading up to writing this I realized that there is an even bigger reason to shift away from the emotions driven panic, and move instead to a perspective of possiblity.
You guessed it: my daughters 🥰
Because the LAST thing I want, is for my girls to start to make the connection that change = stressful. When the thing they are going to experience the most of in their life is change!!
What I want — and what my coach reflected back to me — is to see that when vague plans and/or change unexpectedly knock on my door… I see all the possible beautiful outcomes that come with it.
More broadly, when there are a lot of variables in a moment of life (ahem, moving internationally with 2 littles & a dog and spending a year nomading on the way 😅) allowing myself to truly LOVE a more unplanned experience can only be achieved by experimenting with living that way.
Because if I plan out 6 weeks in Asia down to the letter months in advance (whoopsies! 😛), what sort of beautiful adventures does that allow for us to have?!
Yes, some semblance of a plan is helpful (& necessary) with kids.
But what my intuition is now telling me, is that I can plan a lot less … and by doing so, enjoy things a hell of a lot more.
Better yet — by using this upcoming year of constant change as an opportunity for learning, I can allow my *body* to truly trust that the unplanned life is in fact safe.
Because lord knows if an autistic gal like myself can do it…. ANYONE can.
And in the last few weeks of trying this out, I’ve already learned something extraordinary.
By sharing my feelings (rather than projecting my stress) my partner has stepped up to the plate. He’s planning a big portion of the move, when previously I was doing it all. He’s held my emotional self through some tough moments, and we’ve bonded at a deeper level because of it.
This is what I want with all of you women in my life. Depth. Trust. Reciprocal Support.
I do in fact know I have this with many of you… and by showing a more emotional, flawed version of myself — maybe we can take things to another level, too 😉