Some days I feel clear.
Rooted.
I’m doing the work because it feels aligned. Because I care about the process. Because I trust the slow build.
And then other days… I post something I’m proud of only to immediately second guess myself. Wait, did that make sense? Would someone really care about this? Should I have said it LESS poetic? (story of my life…😭).
I’m no longer inside the work. I’m circling around it.
Watching it from the outside. Questioning. Studying.
Assessing its value based on how it’s perceived.
And THAT is when it gets hard to hear my own voice.
I think that’s one of the quiet costs of creating in public.
We begin to forget what our truth sounds like. It suddenly gets caught in our throat when we know it’s going to be shared with so many ears (eyes). The noise is. so. loud. And the thing is - we don’t chase validation because we’re shallow, but because we’re proud of what we’ve made and we want it to be received, understood… felt.
But when the desire to be understood turns into the need to be approved, the work starts to shift. We bend our instincts. We tweak our tone. We use ‘what will perform well?’ as some compass instead of ‘what’s real for me right now?’
And that’s the thing about truth. You can’t force it to land. You can’t shape something to look perfect on the outside if you’ve lost connection to it on the inside. The audience might not know what’s missing… but we do. We can feel it. There’s a difference between something made from alignment and something made to keep up.
I’ve had moments where I could feel myself editing for perception before I even knew what I wanted to say. Not because I didn’t have a point of view, but because I was already imagining how it might be received. WHAAAT. It’s a wall. A wall of perception.
And it’s hard to be yourself when you’re busy watching yourself.
So when I feel myself spinning, when I start wondering how something will be received before I’ve even finished saying it, I ask:
Am I creating from truth, or from fear of how I’ll be seen?
Because there’s a difference. When I start chasing approval, I lose the thread. I make things for proof instead of presence. I look outward instead of inward. And suddenly I can’t hear what I actually wanted to say.
But I come back to this:
How do I want to be remembered?
Not necessarily in the legacy sense. But in the way we all hope our work leaves a trace. Would I rather be liked? Or felt? Would I rather fit in - or stay true?
We create because we care. But it’s easy to confuse being understood with being approved of. And the truth is… you don’t need to be approved to be real. Or moving. Or worth listening to. You just have to be willing to stay with your voice long enough to hear it again.
It takes practice. To stay with your voice. To trust it. Even Especially when it feels quiet. Even when you’re not sure anyone’s listening.
Is that true for you too?
💌
Ale
P.s. It’s not easy, I know. But your voice knows the way back.
