Navigating Insecurities, Imposter Syndrome and Lack of Confidence as a Creative x Heart-Centred Online Biz Owner after a Ab*sive Relationship
Giving Up on YouTube (Almost)
I decided to quit YouTube two weeks ago, after seriously committing to it for two straight months. I almost went through with it…but after the initial chaos and shame-storm settled, I decided to persist. I still have things to say. I still have things to share. I still have videos to make & more to give. I don’t want to give up now. I’ll keep trying. I’ll try something else until I find something that works, or I’ll just keep posting videos that I enjoy making.
When I considered giving up completely (so I don’t waste energy thinking about the could-have-been’s and should-have-been’s - so that I could dedicate and commit my energy to writing or creating tarot/oracle decks etc), I thought that while I was good at video editing and I had things to share, YouTube simply just wasn’t the right medium. I am, and have always been, first and foremost, a writer and a storyteller. I thought I was being perfectionist in wanting to establish myself as a YouTuber, and perhaps my motivations weren’t purely creative. Perhaps I just wanted the recognition of being a…”famous” YouTuber? Perhaps I was just seeking external validation and approval? Perhaps I just wanted to views? Or maybe I just wanted to go viral and enjoy a few hours of fame on the internet!
Reflecting on the Process
I questioned my motives because…while I felt good about committing and keeping up with my content posting routine (which was something I really struggled with over the years) I didn’t feel good about what I was making or the responses that I received. For two months, I focused on experimenting - be it content, editing style, aesthetics, footages, and the messages I was putting out.
In retrospect, that was one of the things that I’d done right: giving myself space to be curious, to experiment, to explore, to fail. Holding the mindset of “you’re allowed to fail and you’re allowed to not succeed right away” really freed me from the tight clutch of the inner critics (that lived cursedly rent-free in my head) and gave me some peace in just simply trying.
That wasn’t enough, however. Failure, burn-out and overwhelm still washed over me and threatened to drown me. Why wasn’t I getting picked up by the algorithm? Why wasn’t anybody commenting under my videos? Was I not good at engaging the audience? Do people even care about what I’m sharing? Thinking back, I know that’s not true because a few people did comment, and as far as statistics went - having only 10% of your subscribers view your uploaded content wasn’t a bad stat at all, consider the industry average. A healthy amount of engagement is about 1-3% for each video, so getting 1-2 comments for each video is honestly pretty expectable.
How Dare You Show Vulnerability?
But yes. It’s been hard navigating my ambition. I don’t want to tell people that I feel insecure. I don’t want to tell people that I’m struggling to put out content despite being committed to my goals, my dreams, and my visions. I don’t want to appear to be less than perfect, because somehow if you voice your vulnerability, you’re incompetent. You’re supposed to keep calm and carry on. You’re supposed to just suck it up. I didn’t use to have this issue before - in fact, the majority of my audience followed me because of my emotional honesty. They call me authentic, or brave, or relatable. They tell me that me sharing about my struggles and journey to find myself and navigate my shadows makes them feel like they are not alone.
I still question myself. I guess I’ve always been insecure and struggled with self-consciousness, fear of judgement, fear of failure, and fear of not being good enough. These words look so easy on the screen, right? This…collection of words, the vocabulary clustered together that we use to describe our lack of self-worth. Makes it look easy to rationalize, categorize and conquer, right? Makes it so easy to “deal with”?
When in fact, the immensity, the depth, the heavy weight of struggling with the right to exist, the horror in being seen and judged, the terrible dissociated and sinking sensation of feeling like you’re not good enough, and that you’ve been rejected, or worse - in my case - neglected - forgotten, abandoned and betrayed - in short, when you’re doing your best to show up, to commit, to push through your difficulty and challenges with resilience, but at the same time, you can’t deny it - you have fucking trauma and that you went through some dark bullshit that made you feel like this right now and there’s no fucking way for you to simply bypass it but you fear talking about your trauma or spotlighting your reasons for struggling because you fear being needy.
Showing Up while Healing from Trauma
You don’t want to be that girl again. The needy girlfriend that complained. Gosh, why can’t she just shut up? Why does she have to cry out in pain when she’s being mistreated? Why is she always complaining about her trauma? Why is she always getting triggered? Why does she have to react to the way she was abused? Why can’t she just keep quiet and be the happy little girlfriend that she is expected to be? Why can’t she be a man’s peace and why is she so FUCKING EMOTIONAL!?
I know running a business or posting online doesn’t seem to be related to one’s traumatic experience. Ideally, one should learn to…compartmentalize, and keep your emotions separate from the…hustle. Gosh, I dread using that word again! But that’s what hustle is to me now: working while repressing our true selves, our wants and needs. Showing up in my creative & online business REQUIRES for me to be vulnerable and authentic with my audience. No, it’s not a strategic move to let the audience to lean in. It’s not a ploy to build connection to turn viewers into potential customers. It’s literally how I’ve always been and to NOT do so…to not be transparent about my journey, to NOT talk about my emotional experiences feels…wrong and it fucks up my creative circuits in a big way.
Yes, I Fucking Dare to Be ME
My online business journey as a creative has never just been about business. The journey towards success as a creative and heart-centred business owner is never just business alone. The things I create and share online are a direct reflection of my personal and interpersonal journey. The level of confidence I feel as I project myself outward and show up in my online social media platform is a direct reflection of who I am in “real” life.
The truth is, as much as I’d like to compartmentalize and keep my “personal” and “business” life separate, I fucking can’t. This is my life. All of this is my life. It’s a heart-centred business for a reason. It’s a business where people lead with their hearts. It’s a business where people build with the parts of them that matter, the parts of them that will propel them towards their success. It’s not just numbers and profit margins. Heart centred business owners, creatives, artists - this is a calling. This is their life’s mission, their meraki. This is what they love and what their soul compels them to do. So no, I can’t bloody compartmentalize. Not to mention the whole point, the overarching theme and core values of my business is literally creative, authentic, magical and spiritual living!
The Journey of Reclamation
What I realized after all these years is that…I guess I’m fucking insecure! And this isn’t news. I’ve been processing some deep-seated feelings of inadequacy lately. And by processing, I mean processing. I mean feeling into every single thing that I wasn’t able to feel and acknowledge from before. I mean really looking at myself in the mirror as the masks fall off.
This process isn’t linear. There were times when I would gain a moment of awareness and saw myself for what I was doing, but I would fall back into my old routines and coping mechanisms again. I would start chasing, hustling, perfecting, and avoiding to stop myself from feeling insecure or unworthy of love. Not being able to hold those sensations safely over the years had led me to one problematic decision after the next: in business, in relationships, and just in life in general. I’m here struggling because I went through a soul shattering abusive relationship for two years that I wish I didn’t. I felt so destroyed afterwards. I felt like I couldn’t even continue with my mission, my purpose, my passion and my joy. I felt like I couldn’t show up for Fables Den and there were days where I just couldn’t fucking do anything because I felt so fucking depressed, drowning in suffering and the kind of pain and craziness and neglect that makes you want to scream because SOMEBODY PLEASE LOOK AT ME, PLEASE! SAVE ME FROM THIS DESPAIR AND DARKNESS! SAVE ME FROM THE REALITY THAT I WAS ABUSED AND I WAS FUCKING STUPID TO ATTACH MYSELF TO A MAN THAT TREATED ME LIKE A FUCKING DISEASE!
I realize the reason why it’s been so triggering for me whenever I share something online…especially when I talk about my emotions…is because of precisely this: I’m still healing and recovering from that dumbass. Any form of self-expression that involves vulnerability and emotional honesty scares me and sends the alarm bells in my nervous systems into cray-cray-anticipate-the-punishment-how-dare-you-burden-me-with-your-emotions mode. I’m on a journey of healing from relationship abuse and reclaiming my voice as a human being. Of course it’s going to be fucking hard.
But nothing’s gonna stop me from living my purpose because I have an unbreakable spirit. You can’t break me. You can’t tear me apart. You don’t get to tell me that my dreams don’t better. I’m never giving up on my dreams and my goals. No matter how painful it is, I believe in myself. I refuse to give up on me! I refuse!! As if I’d let some abuse take me down! Resilience is my name, BITCH! (Hyperlinked is my self-declared anthem by Morgan Clae, Symphony. Such an empowering song - please have a listen. It will send shivers down your spine!)
Navigating the Next Chapter
Are you a heart-centred business owner or do you own a creative, spiritual or soul-led business? What makes you different from a “traditional” or “conventional” business that is “all hustle”? What gives your business “heart”? What makes your business “soulful”?
What are the things you feel like you HAVE to have in your business so that your business qualifies as a business? 🙄 (I’ve been there - super annoying for someone who wants to live deeply and authentically, I know) How can you know that you’ve gone astray? How do you remind yourself to reconnect with your heart?
What are your triggers with visibility or being seen? Is there a more sustainable and safer way for you to show up online or for your business while allowing you to remain authentic right now? OR, what’s your reason for still showing up anyway, despite the pain, teh trauma, the triggers and the fears??? Because, damn or be damned, this is what you’re born to do and nothing’s gonna stop you from doing what you love!?!?
