What if I’m wrong?
That question lurks in the back of my mind, often.
We’re out on a skinny branch, all the foundation having been laid, we’re about to take things to the next level – scale. I don’t have a lot of evidence for my level of commitment, certainty and direction.
I don’t have a lot of explanation for how I’ve been able to build what I’ve built this far. I don’t come from anything, literally from nothing. Every, single penny I have ever had, I worked for. Have fought and crawled my way from the deepest, darkest depths of life’s back-waters. I don’t have a PhD or a university degree, no family history of success, quite the opposite in fact, no role models growing up, no strong women who I admired. I didn’t grow up with support systems or beliefs that I could accomplish anything with commitment, focus and discipline. I was a lost cause, another statistic, a forgotten one who at best would be a good secretary in the secretary pool and at worse, would have been somewhere on the street.
My circle of influence growing up was based on fear, lack, that a woman’s security and worth was all wrapped up in a man and that it’s better to get a good paying job that’s secure than to do something you love. You weren’t supposed to love your job, you were supposed to be miserable working to earn money so that you could then be miserable from the work you did to earn just enough money to not be miserable. And then, hopefully, after 50 years of doing something that makes you miserable, you would retire so you could do….nothing. How does that make any sense?
Although the veins of that brainwashing peek their head through my own inner fears and insecurities every now and again, I never fit that kind of mold. An alien in that environment.
How did I get here? None of it makes any sense. There are no explanations that I can quantify in the outside world.
But inside, I have always known who I was. Inside, I have always seen where I am going to. Without evidence, without agreement, without history, probability, nor statistics on my side. Against all odds, judgments, ridicule, expectation and public opinion.
I have always known.
But here, now. In a new place again. Having outgrown my old skin and not feeling quite comfortable in my new one, I am afraid, yes. And tired. So very, very tired.
There is a tiredness you feel sometimes that sleep doesn’t fix. A soulful tiredness. It has been such a long, long road. Nothing has been easy.
Not the kind of weary that requires a holiday or vacation. The kind of weary that comes when you’ve been holding the tension of the fight you have on the inside, a fight between two halves of yourself – will you acquiesce to the old state of your ordinariness, or breakthrough to a new dimension of your being?
Success never feels the way you think it’s going to feel.
You know, it’s ok to be tired. It’s ok to acknowledge how long and hard the journey has been. It’s ok to not always have a smiley face on. Life is gritty. Life can be hard and tough and sometimes we don’t understand and sometimes we have to fight – for what we’re worth, for who we are, for what is deep down in our Spirit, as only a whisper from across a distant field, saying, “Come forth”.
It’s ok to acknowledge all of those things. When we are closest to the shore is when we are the most vulnerable – we are weary, we are tired. But what matters most is what we do next. We must journey forth.
To know that yes, it has been a long, hard path, but I have been building a rock solid foundation. Yes, there has been loss and sacrifice and heartbreak, but it has been building my character, my experience, my education and cleansing my karma. Yes, lots of things didn’t go as planned, but it has all been working for me, even if I can’t see it in the moment. It’s time, now, to let go of my frightened parts, release that old state of ordinariness, and lean fully, surrendered, into the next dimension.
Tired and weary, my knees find the altar. Perhaps I’ll rest here, if only for a moment. To catch my breathe, find my humility and be filled with the grace to journey forth.
Krystine McInnes is CEO and Project Director of Athena Farms and Grown Here Farms. Stewarding purpose-driven, change-making projects with a focus on Planet, People, Profit and a commitment to Sustainable Business models.
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