“You did what????” said Fiona, my riding partner this morning. “You put your name AND your photo on your blog?”

She was puzzled! Fiona is one of these people for whom Facebook seems like an absurd concept, “why would anyone wants to share their personal life”, she says! And she definitely can’t be bothered by all the ‘like/smily face’ concept!

My business partner Tim was a bit more subtle in his reaction but didn’t hide his surprise either. “The photo of you and your family surprised me” he said. “I thought you said you wanted to be free. I would have expected you to remain anonymous”.

Why would I hide? Of course being anonymous allows you to say whatever you want because nobody knows who you are. But is that really freedom?

For me going ‘public’, sharing your thoughts and feelings in a open way, without fearing other people’s reactions, without fearing to be judged, now that’s freedom! ‘Owning’ who you are without worrying about others’ judgments, wouldn’t you agree that this is much more empowering that saying what you want in an incognito way? Of course, you don’t care about other people’s judgments when you’re anonymous, they don’t know who you are! So you’re not free, you’re just removing a constraint by placing another one; not mentioning your name.

A few years ago, I tried the anonymous blog thing. This was an interesting exercise. But I was constantly worried that someone would be able to track me down! So I wasn’t really free, was I?  Sure I might have shared some things, a part of me, that I won’t share in this current blog. But that blog was also much more relationship focused and about being an outlet for me to vent about things I could not tell anybody. Even today, I wouldn’t talk about these things… But at the time, this wasn’t about being free, this was about having a place to get my sorrow out of my head and out of my heart… It didn’t free my heart, it helped it cope a bit better..

Today it is different. It’s about being free AND empowered. It’s about fulling owning who I am and telling the world “This is me, like it or not, this is me”. I was in the plane back to Sydney when I pressed “publish” after my first blog – or at least the final iteration of it! As I landed and the blog went online when the internet connection got reactivated, I felt like a voice was screaming inside my head “f… you all”! It felt like I had left a shell behind me… “But nobody was preventing you to do anything before” said Fiona this morning – I love Fiona’s common sense, often helps me things in a much more effective way! Of course nobody was! We’re lucky to be in a part of the world where you can, for the most part, express yourself without fearing consequences.  But what constrains us is not necessarily what we are allowed or not allowed to do. What constrains us is all the pressures we place on ourselves. The desire to please, to be seen in a certain way, to be respecting certain conventions, our education, etc. etc. It’s all our inner rules. The ones we unconsciously construct from the very first day we’re born, the ones we develop by learning how to fit in society.

So writing this blog, in my name, with my photo is a ‘liberating move’. My biggest ‘jailer’ was myself, my inner critic, my perfectionist standards, my attachment to knowledge and theories. All the knowledge I didn’t have and wanted to have; the knowledge without which I wasn’t complete. And today I’m officially saying, “enough, I am enough just as I am and I want you all to know it”. That doesn’t mean to I don’t need or want to know more. That doesn’t mean I value knowledge and theories less. That doesn’t mean either I want to start being disrespectful of people and ideas. That doesn’t mean there are still many things I am probably still attached to and will need to free myself from at a later stage. But my attachment to knowledge was a massive attachment. And today, I have decided to let it go. I will stop using this story of “I’m not an expert, I don’t know enough compared to all the others who know much more than me” for not bringing my best self in the world…

What about you? What ‘has’ you? What is the liberating move you have to make?…

Sandra

PS: You could argue I haven’t put my last name nor mentioned where I work. I haven’t shared these details for obvious cyber-safety issue but also for non-marketing reasons; I don’t want this blog to be seen as a marketing exercise, I also didn’t want to feel the pressure to have to uphold a certain image to respect our brand – although Tim and I are big advocates on bringing your ‘whole self’ to work. But if you genuinely (and by ‘genuinely) I mean not just because you like my photo!!!!)  want to connect more personally, just use the contact form and I’ll be happy to respond! 🙂