Buried uncomfortable places

Well, here I am again, much sooner than I would have loved but hey lessons in life don’t always check in with you about their timing. In my first position as a software developer, I had a supervisor that was quite critical of my work, later on I would realize that he was merely just reflecting back to me my own inner criticism. My work seemed to be never good enough or up to his standard, and slowly enough this turned into a bigger thing of me fearing showcasing my work in public even after I stopped working with him. Quite an irony as I started out as a freelance website developer before this position and a client’s satisfaction of my work was essential

At the end of last year, I enrolled into an Applied AI course being piloted by the organization I work for Code Blossom. We are in the capstone project phase of the course, some weeks back my amazing lecture kept telling me about how excited he was about people seeing my project. The thing is my reaction to this possible run of events was opposite to excitement as it triggered a whole different set of emotions from me. Every time he mentioned my work and public my stomach started to churn and the room started to feel a little hotter. But I ignored it, comforting myself that it was far away. Silently knowing that this was an uncomfortable place tagging at me to deal with it, but in all honesty, it was such a buried uncomfortable place that I did not even know where to begin.

The trickery of the word buried is that because it is not in direct sight, you get this false sense of belief that it is not there, while in true essence it is lurking there just waiting to rise to the surface given the opportunity. And these opportunities for me came at the mention of public and my work. The thing though is that at some point all the layers you used to bury the uncomfortable thing will wear off at some point and finally exposing it. But alas we humans do turn to overplay our own intelligence at times, thinking we got it. Until you start to realize how the effects of not dealing with it had truly bulldozed your life.

This is the perfect example out of sight out of mind, and if you have lived long enough you know how it goes. So as years pass by and you continue living in this glass house you have built, an epiphany leads you to the realization that this thing that you had convinced yourself did not matter was the real reason you passed up opportunities, you declined invitations and most importantly that growth you were seeking is not happening. Accumulating so much regret, that you dealt with it by coming up with a story in your head that justifies your actions. Which is what I did, telling myself presenting my work that way was not my thing thus just leave it be. But when my lecturer brought up the discussion about my demo and all, I think part of me knew that I could no longer run. It did not help that I had declared this year as one to confronting uncomfortable places.

Coupled with what the moment could mean for other women dealing with that same fear, the time had come to pick up the shovel and start digging up the layers that I had allowed to cover my buried uncomfortable place. And so, the day came and yes, I was nervous and had to stop my racing mind come up with a thousand scenarios of things that could go wrong. But my greatest joy came from allowing myself to be in that uncomfortable place till the end. I made it to the other side and now it was time to deal with what is on the other side. Which has led to some other things coming up too naturally, which to be honest made me feel like just crawling back into my shell and giving up all together. But when I weighed what I had lost versus what I was gaining from staying this course I was motivated to continue. I was learning to thrive in uncomfortable places.

My first love is software development and dealing with this uncomfortable place made realize how much of the zeal and joy of learning it I had lost. In facing this particular uncomfortable place, I have been able to get back some of what I had lost, it is a continuous journey though. As I close out blog, I just wanted to say that we all have buried uncomfortable things we carry, I mean this is just one of my many. But in an attempt to truly learn how to thrive in uncomfortable places this lesson came up for me. But however way your lesson might show up, know this to be true buried uncomfortable places are worth excavating. Till next time, hopefully not soon enough, continue thriving in uncomfortable places.