I'm back! And why this post was so hard to write.

Hello stranger!  I’ve missed you too.

I’ve been on “maternity leave” from this blog, my newsletter and most emails since Juliet was born in late May.

I know some of my coach colleagues get ahead with posting and scheduling emails before baby arrives (huge props to you gals!) but with Max at home, a full client load, major renovations on our new house underway — it just didn’t happen.

Who am I kidding?  I wasn’t even attempting to make it happen!

And even though I had nothing prepped in advance, I knew that taking a break from creating content and managing my inbox was what I needed to do to allow myself time to bond with my daughter and just be a sleep deprived mama for a few months.

So, besides my output of Instagram photos of my littles and engaging a bit on social media while I was on the couch breastfeeding or pumping, I’ve been pretty silent over here.

I’ve been dreaming, brainstorming, reading some amazing books, coaching my Elevate women, booking retreat spaces and integrating some new systems for my business backend, but as far as forward facing activities that you could see — I was invisible.

And being invisible was harder than I thought it was going to be.

Even with all the work I’ve done around changing my definition of success to internal measures, and not external validation, it was still hard.

In the world of internet entrepreneurship, there is always some bright shiny new thing being launched and some bright shiny new face making a splash. Though I was deliberately choosing radio silence to hibernate with my family, part of me kept wondering if I was losing ground. Going backwards. Missing out.

Another part of me knew I was being ridiculous, but the anxiety was still there. The little devilish nagging “not enough” fear would pop up without warning and paralyze me when I tried to…

*da-da-da-dum*

Write and publish a blog post.

I’m serious, honey, this fucker was hard.

Although I’ve been coaching and doing a lot of behind-the-scene work this last month, I kept avoiding blogging. Even though I was having fear around being “internet invisible,” I kept avoiding blogging. I actually had great things I wanted to share with you, yet I kept avoiding blogging.

Why?

I had built this huge wall of resistance in my mind about how I have to write the most perfect, compelling, change-your-life post for my first blog back.

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Instead of writing, I would tell myself I needed to create a editorial schedule so I could get everyone excited about applications opening for Elevate. So I could start leaking news about Inner Circle and Summer Camp.  So I could have a plan.

I would tell myself that I needed to up my game because you expected me to have all these new deep thoughts about how to balance a business and two sweet babies. And a marriage. And homeownership. And what do to when your desires are outpacing your resources of time and energy.

Instead of writing, I fretted and stressed and fed my “not enough” demons.

But today, I decided to just simply tell you where I am at. To tell my story honestly and without a lot of sugar coating.  To let you see my discomfort and uncertainty.

I didn’t write the profoundly deep, perfectly balanced blog post of coaching wisdom and funny infant tidbits that would leave you salivating for all the fun I have in store.

I just wrote this.

This is my first post back.

I’m writing this to walk my talk of “stop making things such a huge scary deal” and “get out of your own way” and “life is messy and beautiful.”

I’m writing this to remind you that no one expects perfection and if they do, who wants those friends/clients/lovers anyway?

I’m writing this to get over my weird block of being seen/not being seen right now.

To tell you that I see you and that whatever you are doing right now is enough.

I’m writing this to invite you back to this community, to this journey of creating authentically joyful lives.

And sometimes those joyful lives include writing steam of consciousness blog posts, full of cliches and sentences that start with “so” and “and,” and releasing it to the world because published is better than perfect.

I’m so happy to be back.