The Rules I Intend to Break with this Blog

Jan 07, 2022

I’ve wanted to start my own blog/newsletter for a long time. This process also terrifies me. The idea of putting my voice out there on a regular basis feels both thrilling and scary. Before I started writing this post, I spent about 30 minutes staring at my screen, paralyzed, reminding myself of this fact.

I create that result (paralysis) by perceiving and relating to the idea of this blog in a certain way. If you’re curious about how you could create a similar result yourself, here’s my recipe:

Get really attached to creating a good image. Believe that how people perceive you is the #1 factor that will influence your ability to succeed, help others, and make a positive impact. Rely on image management to address your core needs of feeling loved and worthy.
View your blog as one of the most important levers with which to influence your image.
Believe a certain set of rules for how a blog should be. Ideally, these rules should make the writing process really hard. You should believe that if it’s not hard, it won’t be good enough, and people won’t love you.
Take the writing process VERY SERIOUSLY. Put a high premium on making sure you write your best – and don’t settle for anything less than perfect. This is high stakes poker here, so don’t screw it up.
Be terrified of the possibility of rejection, and imagine that rejection is the result you will get if your writing isn’t interesting enough and/or you email people with the wrong frequency.
To avoid rejection, attempt to pick writing topics based on what you think others would want to see and what would create the image you want. Spend a lot of mental energy thinking through this choice – you have to be really attached to finding the right answer here. Don’t slow down enough to ask yourself or notice what you actually want to write about.
Procrastinate by keeping yourself busy, ideally with things that give you a sense of temporary relief (i.e. respond to emails, get other tasks done, enroll in new training programs, eat, socialize, go skiing). Tell yourself you’ll get to writing when all the other more urgent tasks currently on your plate are done and you have enough mental space to really write your best.
Complain about all the things you wish were different (i.e. your Squarespace blog template, the attention economy, how busy you are) and believe that if those things were different, your writing process would be easier and your results would be better.
Blame all the people and circumstances who are distracting you and keeping you from fulfilling your dream and deeper life purpose. Blame yourself for not being courageous enough to do it. Use the resulting drama to continue procrastinating.

Breaking Free From the Pattern

As uncomfortable as it feels at first, pulling back the curtain and showing all of you how I create this state of paralysis around my blog is actually wonderfully freeing, and it supports my internal process of breaking free from the pattern.

To take this one step further, next I’m going to reveal all the rules I make up about how a blog should be, and declare that I intend to break them.

But first, a little backstory.

Earlier this month, during an experiential session of a psychedelic guide training course I’ve been taking, I had the following moment of insight.

I realized that I can sum up so much of what is happening in my life right now with one simple statement:

“I am learning to love myself.”

I am learning that loving myself – really loving myself – means giving myself permission to be fully authentic.

It means letting it be OK for me to want what I want. It means giving myself permission to intentionally cultivate my own pleasure and enjoyment of life. To do things because they are fun and make me feel good. To say no when I have a no.

It also means giving myself permission to break rules and be messy if that’s what makes my inner light shine. To risk disappointing others or losing their approval if that is what it takes to nourish my aliveness. If I really love myself, I know I don’t need to please anyone else to meet that core need of feeling loved and worthy. Because I give that gift to myself, constantly.

As an Enneagram type 2, it goes against a lot of the core programming of my ego personality structure to consciously choose messiness and risk disappointing others or losing their approval. In fact, as I write that, I can feel my inner good student squirming, my mind racing with objections and self-critiques, and my stomach tying itself in knots.

As uncomfortable as all of that feels, I’ve also learned to interpret those feelings as a signal that I’m on my learning edge, and that on the other side of the discomfort lies freedom.

Thanks to the recipe I wrote earlier, I also understand the racket I usually create to avoid these uncomfortable feelings, and the cost of keeping myself in the pattern.

I know from experience that a conscious choice to stop defending my ego and give myself permission to trust my authentic needs, wants, and desires will open me up and allow greater aliveness to flow through. So, I choose to go for it. I feel scared every time, and bit by bit, it slowly gets easier to notice I’m scared, accept myself, and find my way through into flow and trust. That’s my practice.

gramming of my ego personality structure to consciously choose messiness and risk disappointing others or losing their approval. In fact, as I write that, I can feel my inner good student squirming, my mind racing with objections and self-critiques, and my stomach tying itself in knots.

As uncomfortable as all of that feels, I’ve also learned to interpret those feelings as a signal that I’m on my learning edge, and that on the other side of the discomfort lies freedom.

Thanks to the recipe I wrote earlier, I also understand the racket I usually create to avoid these uncomfortable feelings, and the cost of keeping myself in the pattern.

The Rules I Intend to Break with this Blog

Here are some rules I make up about how a blog “should” be. I intend to break them.

Posts should be made at a regular frequency – roughly monthly, which is not too long and not too short between posts, but just right.
Posts should have a roughly standard length.
Posts should span a strategic variety of topics.
Posts should be woven together by some common theme.
Posts should take a long time to write – at least 4 hours or more – plus considerable mental effort.
Posts should be refined, redrafted, and rewritten for clarity. Only the best writing – meaning the most refined and perfect – should be published.
Posts should introduce genuinely novel ideas.
Posts should remain relatively uncontroversial and shouldn’t ruffle too many feathers.
Posts should be crafted to portray me as a highly polished, powerful, and attractive coach. They should be designed for people to read them and think “damn I should work with this guy, he could really help me.”
Posts should be designed to provide value to the reader in a specific, easy, and actionable way, like introducing a sexy framework or DIY fix for common everyday issues.
I should feel proud of what I write and fully comfortable sharing it publicly.
Lists should be kept to a clean and attractive number of items, like 3 or 5 or 10.

Your Turn

I’m smiling and giggling to myself on the other side of putting all of that out there. How liberating it feels to pull back the curtain and just show you what I’m up to! Plus, with some healthy distance here now between me and my ego threat patterns, I can feel affectionately playful with myself and those patterns don’t feel like such a big deal.

So – now it’s your turn.

Where are you keeping yourself contained and paralyzed by managing your image or following rules about how you believe things “should” be?

Where do you sense that a little bit of intentional rule-breaking and messiness would be in service of your own greater aliveness?

Where is that edge you don’t allow yourself to cross, based on your own personality structure and beliefs about your safety, need for control, or lovability and worthiness? That shadowy place inside that feels so uncomfortable to own, let alone reveal, because your ego identity believes that doing so would be a threat to its very survival?

Once you’ve found that place, consider: What does it cost you to defend your ego in this way? And What are you willing to risk for your own liberated aliveness?

I’d love to hear your answer. Let’s get messy together!

Thanks to Unsplash for the free photo library and to all the artists that contribute their work on the site. And thanks to Sue Heilbronner for the inspiration.

Soulful Impact

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