Not a Cancer Imposter

I’ve been getting little signs that I am getting in my own way.  A podcast I listened to identified it as imposter syndrome.  I feel like an imposter since I started this blog. There’s that ridiculous thinking again.  I’m an imposter writing about breast cancer? What’s the qualifications to write this kind of blog? Have breast cancer. I sure didn’t fake that. I have the football scars to prove it. 

I felt like such an imposter that I went to a soul sister who shares the pink ribbon also. I went to her, nervous and bumbling my words with unexplainable tears forming. My purpose was to ask for breast cancer club approval for this thing I am about to do. Are you following me? I went to another survivor to ask for acceptance from the entire breast cancer community on something I am going to do. That’s not the words I spoke out loud, well not exactly the words, but I felt the need to be told you are not an imposter. Wow, what a weight I was putting on her to speak for the entire breast cancer community.   

She told me to look for the little signs, the ones that would tell me if ego was driving me toward this thing, or if I was acting from purpose. With that advice the little signs started flooding in, like Carl suggesting I do the exact thing I had already been thinking about. My friend pointed out a few more I was overlooking.

Mulling over her words on my walk and listening to the podcast this morning (An Introduction to Thought Work: A Conversation with Hannah Berner) I was stopped by the neighbor’s rose bush.

There were so many beautiful roses of various sizes. A little one caught my eye. Being smaller than the others doesn’t stop it from being a rose. I doubt it is looking at the other roses that are bigger and compares it’s self. I doubt it is shrinking on purpose to hide because of the others around it.  It’s just dealing with the circumstances it was given and making the most of it.  

A journey is relevant because it’s a journey. There’s not a single way to do this life, whether it’s cancer life or not. We know this but sometimes we need to be reminded even if it takes a rose in a bush to do that. Stay tuned for the thing I am doing that I was overthinking. I pretty excited about it.