I’m baaack – or at least trying to be – May 2025 posting challenge

For a long time it feels like I have been coccooning and staying one step back from the conversation.

Anyone who has followed me for a while will know I had to shut my Inside Aut business website down and transfer to a holding site last year after the money ran out.

Simple econonomics – money going out far exceeded the money coming in. And with zero support – and unable to afford to pay for support – I had to put the business down for a while.

I still don’t know when, or if, I will re-engage with Inside Aut as a business. That is in the ‘later’ pile.

What I do know is that after that failure is that I was hammered by imposter syndrome, the RSD gremlin and good old Panic Monkey.

All telling me I should walk away – for different reasons.

Imposter Syndrome – ‘Look at all those amazing advocates out there, being booked to do talks, getting awards, achieving incredible things – making a real difference. Who are you to pretend you have anything to offer?’

The RSD gremlin- ‘You are nothing, you always were a nothing, nobody wanted to hear from you when you were a child, even your own partner didn’t want to hear from you – and oh look – when you try to run these courses – the general public doesn’t want to hear from you either. So what if you had over three hundred people? If you were any good at all it would be thousands not hundreds. And I bet those people only booked out of pity anyway.’

Panic Monkey – ‘Putting yourself out there created a lot of trauma for you when it didn’t go well – and you let the RSD gremlin and Imposter Syndrome out to do even more damage. No way is it safe to put yourself out there again.’

And what I have to remind myself over and over – is that these voices are liars – or at the very least mistaken.

So to Imposter Syndrome I say –

“Yes, there are amazing advocates out there, people working at a level I have no hope of reaching – achieving incredible things. And that is great – the world needs people like that – they are the game changers.

But the world also needs people like me – the people who can amplify others voices, who can speak up, who can nudge the dial half a notch. Because if we all stepped up and moved the dial half a notch – big things can happen.

Plus – even if you don’t have a big reach, a big voice, the battery or the drive to be consistent and persistent in the face of barriers – you DO know what you are talking about, you have done the work, the research, taken the time to listen to others and really try to understand where they are coming from. You DO have useful information to share.’

To my RSD gremlin – ‘You and I have been companions for a very long time – I have never known you to be helpful or useful. So what if I AM nothing, if no-one wants to hear from me? If they aren’t listening then what space am I taking up by talking?

And even if the engagement and the positive comments were out of pity (which is unlikely) – so what? This shows that people do care.

And I am not responsible for other people’s responses – those responses have a lot more to to with them and what they are dealing with than they have to do with me.

So thankyou for your thoughts, now sit down and shut up. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.’

To Panic Monkey – ‘I get that one bad experience negates all previous positive experiences for you and that you only want to protect me – but blogging went well for me before – there is no reason it can’t go well again.

And if it doesn’t – then I have my answer – it’s time to walk away instead of hovering on the edges.’

And to all three – and to anyone who has taken the time to read this – I am putting forward an intention for May – to face down my fear and start stepping forward again.

Exposure therapy, if you will, knowing that Panic Monkey isn’t good at calculating odds of safety accurately. Testing the waters to see if it’s safe to go swimming again.

The plan – loosely – is to post once a day for May. Sometimes a post, short or long, (who am I kidding, I don’t do short well), sometimes a re-post, sometines a link to a new blog post, sometomes a link to an old blog post I really like.

But stepping out again, speaking up again, trying to be brave again.