Becoming BOLD
Someone once told me that you write the book you needed.
It rang true to my spirit but also frustrated me. Ten years ago, the book I needed was something full of compassion, empathy and encouragement because I’d gone through such a tumultuous season of learning really hard and expensive lessons. As a business owner and in my personal life.
I wanted so badly to believe I deserved more, but I was so focused on all of my failures, I believed the lie that I was the failure. But I also needed a little bit a gritty, somewhat self-deprecating, but honest correction. I needed to hear: “You can do this. Stop crying on the couch and GET BACK UP!” (With love, and a kick in the a$$, of course).
I distinctly remember sitting in my car, outside an interview, trying to force myself to believe that I belonged there. That I was valuable enough to apply for this position, even though I didn’t fully understand the ever-changing industry I was hoping to enter into, the job description (which was delightfully vague) or skills required to execute it well.
All I knew, was that I was an internal hot mess. I couldn’t let my interviewer know about my anxiety attacks, the depression or panic because of the constant uncertainty I was in. I needed to portray confidence. Self-assurance. Integrity. Grit. An unshakable mask that says, “I can do it!”
In the silence of the front seat of my Honda Pilot in downtown Fargo, I recall reaching up to pull the review mirror down to look directly into my green eyes. Pleading with myself not to suck. As a creative, an artist and former interior design consultant, I knew the color red was bold and portrayed confidence. This was the mask I wore that I hoped would communicate that I was bold and unafraid.
Carefully lining my lips with bright red Sephora Lipstick, Color 10: More is More, I thought of how to be the person I thought they wanted. I patted down my black pencil skirt, pulling off some Yellow Lab dog hair, my sweet puppy Samuel left behind.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breathe. Inhaling for four counts, 1…2…3…4…and then exhaling four counts, 1…2…3…4…
Slowly opening my eyes, I looked at myself again in the mirror and mustered up the most authentic and honest affirmation I could think of:
“Ok Melanie, don’t be ridiculous!”
Today, I laugh at this image. It feels like yesterday. Later, I was told that I looked like a young Cruella DeVille. I took it as a compliment…sort of. If you want to look like an emotionless sociopath. I digress.
Creepy Instagram filters…Emotional mask wearing…same thing I guess.
In all honesty, it would take me a full decade to learn the lessons I wish I would have known that cold morning in my car.
Women can mask a panic attack pretty well. We’re taught how to not show or experience our emotions at a very young age. We can be who you need us to be for a time. For me, it took a while to crack that shell. You see, I mastered the red lips, but the rest of what I had to work on was an inside job. And what drove me to keep trying was that I had two amazing gifts I’d been given. My son, Carter, and my daughter, Grayce. While I didn’t think I mattered that much, what kept me trying was knowing that my kids deserved a mom who was present, emotionally, physically and spiritually. I didn’t have hope for myself, but what propelled me was that I wanted them to have the mom they deserved.
Grayce, Me and Carter dressed up as Run-D.M.C., 2014.
I’ve heard the most resilient people have a trick. It’s not how many risks you can take or even the magnitude of those risks. It’s actually how quickly you can get back up after a failure, brush yourself off, tend to your wounded ego and try again.
After ten years of some successes, and a multitude of failures, I’m so humbled to have had genuine people who cared about me, pick me back up when I couldn’t. Help me back to my feet, remind me of who I am and what I’ve been created to do on this earth. They held up a better mirror to help me see what I am capable of, when I viewed myself as broken. They’ve seen the ugly messy version of me. They’ve also seen the polished and rehearsed version.
They’ve let me be me while figuring out this process.
All of these lessons I’ve learned (and in many cases, I’ve had to unlearn) have brought me here. I’ve considered each experience, each story, each wound, each success, as if they were little porcelain dolls I remember from my great-grandmother’s never dusty shelf. Collected and reflected upon.
I’ve spent years researching and experiencing my own self-doubt and self-assurance, trust and mistrust, powerlessness and powerful positioning, insignificance and courage, shame and vulnerability, honest self-reflection and morbid introspection. I learned of the Imposter Syndrome a couple years ago and laughed out loud. This is a syndrome? Get out of my head, Forbes. I thought I was the only one.
What I have learned in some cases was this: no one else was holding me back from choosing courage to back up and try again. It was me. As Brene Brown says, I engineered my smallness by not getting back in the arena.
I’m passionate about the woman in front of me. I want to hold up a new mirror, helping her see herself as the woman she’s capable of being, the way others helped me. I’m obsessed with discarding old mindsets so that women lean into their courage, chose confidence and grow to become the BOLD leader they’ve been created to be.
So with that…(and WOW. If you’re still reading. Kudos. I never read blogs this long.)
I’m SO FREAKING EXCITED to be accepting applications to our first Becoming BOLD Leaders 10-week program. I’ve taken a decade of overcoming paralyzing perfectionism and fear, feelings of insignificance and insecurity, and a ridiculous tendency to want to hide in isolation until I’m shiny again…and packaged it into ten, three-hour sessions in a small group format to help other women (re)discover their purpose, passion and voice.
If you are or know a woman who would benefit from practical teaching and applications on becoming her BOLDEST self, please send her my way.
If you run an organization and want to host this course for a small group within your company, email me at melanie@sheovercomes.co
Founder of She Overcomes and co-Founder of the She Overcomes Community Foundation