Naked In the Arena: Daring Greatly

In which I take up the sword against imposter syndrome, stage fright, and my trusty, musty ole misfit complex.

Ever since the Great Website Fiasco in December forced me to look for a new home for 6 years of writing, including huge swathes of my memoirs, I have been hemming, hawing, clutching pearls, gnashing teeth and generally throwing fits as I debate what to do with it all, how to reorganize it, where to put it, and most especially…

IF I even want to undertake this Herculean labor.

As such, my first legit blog post that I ever wrote comes full circle. The circumstances are different, as I now have no problem drafting, editing and pushing Publish on posts.

Yet my current hesitations and procrastinations originate from the same source as the old dilemma. Thank goodness the solution remains the same, too, so let’s get this bloggy party started by resurrecting my first ever blog post for your heckling, popcorn-throwing, arena-chanting pleasure.

Ye Olde Blog
4/12/17

I am NOT editing this post, dammit. For years I have been trying to blog.

Correction.

I have been failing to blog.

There is no try...only Yoda.

As a devoted writer, I consider this failing a sacrilege, but that still hasn't managed to catapult me beyond whatever my problem is.

My bloggy silence is not for lack of topics that interest me. Ohhhh no, I am blessed with a consistent litany of, "That would make a cool post!" or "I could totally write about that!" Sometimes I even do. In order to present a piece that is polished and professional(esque--I am an irreverent, sewer-mouthed tomboy, after all), I save it to be edited once it's had time to settle in my brain.

Kiss of death.

IF I am ever inspired enough to pull it up and put the finishing touches on it, I almost never post it. Why?

MEH.

My potential blog posts die in their crib from a whole lot of MEH. Once it was puked onto the page, I lose interest in the topic. The fire of immediacy dwindles and I'm onto something else. Attention Deficit Oooh Shiny strikes again. Or weird technology glitches happen and I chock it up to, "Huh, guess I wasn't supposed to post that. Okay, on with my day!" Occasionally I will make it through a revision, but when it comes time to push Publish, I just...

Don't.

It doesn't sound nearly as cool as I had thought it would. It's not as relevant as I had originally thought. Most of the time, I would much rather spend my editing passion on my novels, so I do. That leaves untold slews of little pieces and snippets and rants and thought-provoking hmmmmms clogging up my hard drive.

Honestly? I think we need to call it what it is.

Chicken-shittery.

All my old self-conscious why-would-anybody-ever-wanna-hear-what-you-have-say crap that I've been dealing with since second grade during that stupid Good-Better-Best assignment that got me sent out into the hallway - the single time in my life that it ever happened. I'm sure we'll get to that story. It deserves a post unto itself because it was one of the pivotal moments of my life. It’s what officially silenced me once and for all.

And yes. I've already drafted it ages ago. It's right here in my handy-dandy computer. Unpublished. Unshared. Unread. Buk-buk-buk-meh.

As such, I ordered a book today. It’s called Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown.¹

One of the most riveting phrases that prompted me to buy it described the book as "...a practice and a powerful new vision for letting ourselves be seen," because it brought to the forefront how much I have stopped doing just that. I haven't posted a new dance on YouTube since I went to Madison, WI in 2014. In fact, I have posted very few since 2010.

Granted, very few have been captured on video since then--a strange phenomenon I haven't ever been able to explain except through mystical wooga-wooga mirroring my ever-increasing desire to hermit. In the past seven years, I have been less and less willing to put myself out there on that stage.

Any stage.

Imagine my surprise when I opened my new book and found a quote that has been poking me in the forehead for months:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

~Theodore Roosevelt
Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic"
Delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910

These words have been poking me because they were also quoted in the video for Lindsey Stirling's The Arena that I've had on obsessive replay since I first spied it.²

Oooooh... *spooky music*

Nope. It's merely my devious, doting faerie godmother, Synchronicity.

As I sink teeth and claws into this new dance adventure, I've been binging on Lindsey Stirling for a month, at last succumbing to the inevitable and complete transformation of my belly dance into what it has always been: BellaDance, this combination of my ADOS love affair with dances from around the world, my equally variegated obsession with martial arts, and my inability to hold a simple conversation because my brain always thinks in terms of building tension to deliver impact to The Story.

There will be a whole lot more of those topics in here as well. In fact, they are rather the point of this blog.

For which I have actually created a full-length post.

Finally.

And I AM gonna push Publish--more than just today--even though it feels like I'm walking out naked in the arena with a flawed blade.

That’s something else I've already written, although it's not a snippet or even a post. It's one of the scenes from the first book of my Gladiatrix series. I've been writing this ferocious female fighter since I was seventeen, when I desperately needed her.

I've always needed her, which is why she's been a crucial part of my life for so long. She teaches me bravery. She teaches me triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds. She teaches me to get creative when I feel desperate, to get up when I've been battered into the ground, to strike when I see the opening, and to open when I feel vulnerable and afraid.

This last is the most important point of her story arc. There are so many she-ro stories about girls learning to stand up and take no shit. Or women finding their voices after being caught in a stranglehold. Or females doing badass things RAWRRRR!

But this only comprises the first steps to healing and reclamation in a female who needs to bust out from under the thumb. It’s only the first chunk of the Heroine’s Journey.³

Maureen Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey Cycle, which can be undertaken by a character of any gender. It was her answer to Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey..

I am always on the hunt for tales that bring the story of women like this to the next stage where all that strength and fire and steel may to be used in the manner they were meant--as protection. Not as a constant state of armored bristle and bitchitude to keep everyone at bay and fuck-the-man! But rather, as a safeguard that provides the opportunity to soften, open, connect, glow, give. It allows the cultivation of that most elusive and precious of treasures...

Trust.

I've been writing this story for over half my life, and I've been living it much longer. It, too, I look forward to sharing someday, but that one absolutely requires deep revision.

This one?

FUCK IT. (See? Toldja. F-Bombs awaaaayyyy...)

I'm just gonna get nice and nekkid all over this blog. I'm gonna push Publish.

Right now.

UPDATE: In case you’re wondering, I did keep blogging after this post. At first, it was like trying to learn how to double-dutch, but then one cold and foggy night during the holidays, somebody felt it necessary to drink, drive, and post on social media the locations of all the DUI checkpoints so other drunks could avoid them.

Hooooo boy. I shared the tale of having my life blown to smithereens by a drunk driver and I’ve never stopped regurgitating tales since that moment.

Oh. And lack of dance video thing? Yeah, so not a problem anymore either. And to Lindsey Stirling even! Daring Greatly absolutely pays off.

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So? Anything you’ve needed to Dare Greatly about? Does exposing your personal tales, thoughts and feelings seem like getting nekkid in the arena to you, too? What motivates you to do it anyway?

© 2017 Hartebeast

1. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown

2. One of my greatest and longest-enduring Muses - violinist, dancer, storyteller, author, visionary, innovator, champion: Lindsey Stirling
Lindsey Stirling on YouTube

3. The Heroine's Journey
The book by Maureen Murdock
Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey.
The Hero With a Thousand Faces