The Manifestation Chronicles
If you would like to only read about fishing and outdoor adventures, please skip to the next blog post.
A Writer’s Reflection
It’s hard to put into words the chaos of the last four years. Collectively we’ve all felt it and will continue to feel it as we move away from 2020. Like many of our friends and family in our 30s we are navigating and surviving. We are heading into what is supposed to be our high-income-earning years with trepidation, uncertainty, volatility, and yet again more chaos.
Vulnerability is hard for me. I strive for perfection and to create a barrier between myself and the world for my own perceived protection. I’m not the only one that does this. Brené Brown writes:
“If you trade authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.”
I’ve never felt so attacked and so seen.
Safety for me means perceived perfection, being smart and well-informed, having a clean house, being successful at work, performing a task flawlessly, and constantly striving for “the best.” Authenticity is messy, complicated, and flawed. People don’t want to see constant chaos; they want the hero’s journey to perfection and belonging, and then continued happily ever after in said perfection.
Thank you, Disney and American Dream brainwashing.
Brené Brown continues to say:
“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”
I have always questioned if I belong, and where I belong, in the spaces I choose to be a part of: the outdoor community, corporate America, the university system, the writing community, and the list continues. Am I really supposed to be here? Am I worthy of being here? Am I capable of the things being asked of me?
What I have come to understand is the answers to these questions don’t actually matter. What matters is having the vulnerability to accept authenticity and all it entails. What matters is showing up to the space and being who I am with all of my own chaos, joy, darkness, fear, happiness, and struggle.
The Journey
I am stepping into a new and different era of my life and my writing. I created this blog as a chronicle of adventures to hopefully inspire and educate others about the places our family has traveled. It’s polished, true, and researched. I believe I’ve done a pretty great job at meeting my original goal.
The beauty of this platform is it can be whatever I want it to be and it can reflect the new era of my life as I step into it.
So, here is my vulnerability: Our lives are not only a series of wild adventures. They are chaos, pain, love, joy, heartbreak, boredom, struggle, and happiness.
“True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”
As I move into these next chapters, I find myself required to be more. Required to be who I am authentically and with more vulnerability than I have in the past. I hope you will join me in this journey of belonging.
The river doesn’t care who you are, were, or are pretending to be. The river requires you to be fully present. It requires you to be who you are in that moment with no judgement. All it will ever ask of you is your complete and full attention. This is what keeps me coming back to the water again and again. I truly belong here. I will be brave enough to be who I am at its shores because, for the river and these wild spaces, I don’t need to change or be anyone else but me.
– Amanda R. – Book Title TBD