I remember being in my 30s and looking down at my body, saying, “There’s got to be more to me than this.”  I’ve been working away at this project of ‘me’ for a long time now, and with this year of blogging (in public!) I have upped the ante.

What frightens me about this latest endeavour is that sooner or later I’m going to piss somebody off—or perhaps worse, bore them. Of course I’m pretty sure I piss people off regularly anyway (my housemates could attest to this) but there is something about putting my words out into the world that has me feeling very vulnerable. And yet I crave being seen as more than I’ve allowed myself to be seen as so far.

Gardeners use the term “hardening off ” to describe a process that means gradually introducing seedlings started indoors to the much harsher conditions of the garden outside. Part of the “hardening off” process I’m experiencing is about being okay with what people think. Not worrying about it. You can’t please all the people all the time, after all. And I have a hunch that there’s part of me that wants to be a shit disturber anyway, so I may as well get on with it.

In 1993 I bought my first Toyota from a wonderful guy named Hank. He also enrolled me in The Mastery of Self Expression, a workshop designed to help people get more in touch with their emotions. It was a strange time in my life. I’d been excommunicated from a spiritual group that had pretty much encompassed my whole social circle, so I was lonely and a little traumatized, but also relieved to be free.

The first evening of the workshop, each participant was invited to take the stage and do some introductory work with the leader. Determined that none of the people who had encouraged me to attend should witness my distress, I outwaited everyone until the wee hours of the morning. But once I made the leap up those twelve inches to the stage, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The second day’s assignment was a performance piece, and I did a spoken word version of an Ann Mortifee song. I’m pretty sure it was Anger is a Fever. Although nerve wracking, it wasn’t awful either, once I got started.

By the time the weekend was over we were all clambering for the stage and they practically needed a hook to pull us off.  So part of me already knows the experience of “hardening off” and learning to express the secret (sometimes even to me) parts of myself out in the open.

It’s been twenty-six years since that workshop and I can remind myself that this blog, documenting my Year of the Child, exists in service of freedom. Its purpose is to expand my realm past what I can see, trusting that something will hold me. It’s about taking a leap of faith.

I initially thought of that phrase as a death–defying leap over some abyss that could swallow me whole, but I’m coming to realize that it is a more gradual process. It’s about learning how to relax into the moment, calm all the frightened little ones, and surrender to something more whole, more life-affirming than my little self can possibly imagine.

Is there a leap of faith calling you that would allow for a more fulsome life? Let me know, I’d love to hear!