You feel it: the pull to create something original, to teach from lived experience, and speak in a voice that feels like your own. That instinct is the beginning of a body of work. The problem is we tend to imagine a body of work as something we build after we’ve become who we’re meant to be. We mistake it for proof of arrival—when in truth, it’s how we get there. 

Avoidance wears many spiritual disguises. I have so much grace for the early phase, when your nervous system is catching up, when you’re still building the inner scaffolding and it’s truly not time yet. But there’s a point when “not yet” becomes “never,” and when you’re not actually waiting anymore… you’re avoiding.

Starting something new automatically means stepping into uncertainty and risking imperfection. It means making yourself visible. It’s vulnerable, and it forces you to be open to both rejection and reward. With the overwhelming mix of emotions in play, it’s no wonder so many people never make it past the starting line. 

There are very few things in life you can count on. People will leave and identities will shed like old skin. The world will change around you. Money will come and go, happiness will ebb and flow. Life will happen, and as it does, almost nothing will stay the same. But you do have one thing that will never abandon you: your voice.

One of the first things I had to give up in this work was caring what other people thought. Not in a flippant, surface-level, “I don’t give a shit” kind of way. I mean in the deeper, cellular sense of unhooking myself from external validation, of refusing to let other people’s opinions, reactions, or silence determine what, or whether I create.

I’ve never been what you’d call “disciplined.” I’ve struggled with structure my whole life. I can’t be rigid, and I rebel against systems. But one of the most profound transformations of my journey has been becoming someone who is devoted to their life’s work. When devotion came along, everything felt different.