For week 2 of my "Fundamentals of Connection" E-course, I decided to bring in special guest Ryan McCormick from the podcast “A Fireside Chat”. Ryan has always been a huge motivator for me in embracing my vulnerability, and his podcast episodes are extremely inspiring when he lets his own walls down and gives us a glimpse into some of the crazy making thoughts that race through his mind. I think that you will see in this episode that I am breaking down and, honestly, wanting to hide my head in the sand and pretend I never started this damned experiment. I even had a bit of a break down after turning off the microphone half way through our conversation. Ryan hits the nail on the head. I'm putting too much pressure on myself. Old patterns are trying to seep back in and cozy up to that comfort-ability factor. I feel exposed. I feel like I don't have anything steady to fall back on. This was certainly MUCH more than I had bargained for. I decided to leave all of this awkwardness in the episode. I did edit out some insanely long pauses of silence, but everything else was left in tact. It felt important to leave it all in. So I hope you will bear with me through this one. It just felt right to be uncomfortable. I didn't want to run from my thoughts like I usually do. I let them float around. I tried not to dismiss or judge them. I just sat in that awkward, uncomfortable feeling until it finally felt... OK. These thoughts don't define me. And it's time I really did the work to understand them, this “darker” part of myself. So yeah, it felt brutal. But I'm up for the challenge. Are you???