The Gift of Insecurity

I'm back in a good exercise groove. Writing in the early mornings frees up hours of my day that I would otherwise spend writing (or, let's be more accurate, worrying about writing) and I'm choosing to spend some of those hours working out. I'm remembering something I've always known, and periodically ignored, that I am happiest when I move my body, when I enjoy a good sweat. Also, this is often when I'm hit with my biggest, and best, ideas.

My exercise of choice is a class called Physique 57. It is a barre class, dance-inspired, and writing this makes me smile because I was never a dancer or a group fitness person. I guess I'm changing. Anyway, I love this class and how it makes me feel. But it is hard. It's made up of these tiny, micro muscle movements. If you are doing it right, you will shake, the impossibly pretty and lithe instructor croons into her microphone, Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" thumping in the background.

If you are doing it right, you will shake.

If you are shaking, you know that change is happening.

For someone like me, someone prone to thinking and over-thinking sometimes, this strikes me as profound. And, no, it's not just about exercise. It's about life.

When I started this blog more than four years ago, I sat in my little green office and brainstormed a title. It didn't take me long to come up with one: Ivy League Insecurities. The Ivy League part? Well, it was cute and gimmicky. I went to Ivy League schools. I seem keen on letting people know this about me. That was more true four years ago than it is today. But the insecurities part? That was more meaningful.

I was really insecure then. I had two tiny girls at home, had just lost my father and signed a book deal, and I felt lost and scared. I had a pristine education and many privileges, but I felt utterly unprepared for life. I decided it was time to stop pretending all was peachy and talk about what I felt, those insecurities I had a hunch were more universal than personal.

I am less insecure today. I think writing my way through my days has helped. I think I've gotten to know myself better. Confidence has come with time. And with effort. But here's the truth:

I am still insecure.

I have these moments when I feel like I am not doing a good enough job in any area of my life. Moments when I'm stuck in my writing, when the kids are acting up, when I don't get a comment on my blog, when someone unfollows me on Instagram. How beyond silly is that last one? I know. In these less than moments, I feel like crap. I feel shaky.

If you are doing it right, you will shake.

I am coming to a conclusion that I've been dancing around for some time: Insecurity, in moderation, is a gift. It is a reminder that we care, that we are human, that we are evolving. Another conclusion? An important footnote? What we do with our shakiness makes all the difference. Do we run from it, never go back to that literal or proverbial ballet barre? Or do we embrace it, hang on, hang in, let our muscles quiver, and celebrate the fact that we are actually doing it, daring to let ourselves shake, changing and that change is everything?

I'm not sure if this will make any sense to you, but it makes all of the sense in the world to me. I think that if we are living big and honest lives, if we are really going for it, if we are immersing ourselves in people and things and worlds we care about deeply, we will feel the shaking from time to time. It is just part of the game.

You see the picture above? I love it. I love it because it's my girl in her ponytail and pretty dress admiring the green around her, the mess of tall grass, the trees, the mockingly blue summer sky. To me, she looks so small. And there is an ineffable beauty to this, to being a speck on the canvas, a dot in the cosmos, a little girl in the wild, a lone leaf shaking in the wind of the world. I know I'm getting carried away with the metaphors, but that's what I do. I get carried away. And what fun this can be.