You Are What You Believe
Insecurity, my friend Leah, and how this blog came to be
It’s a Tuesday night and I find myself in a swanky hotel bar in Santa Monica. I’m donning ripped black jeans and an oversized leather jacket; so naturally, I stick out like a sore thumb. I make my way towards the back bar where I’m meeting an old friend from my agency days, in from New York City.
After prying said friend from the hands of three quintessential Los Angeles men she’d met while waiting for me (restaurant owner, movie producer, and friend of a friend), we sit down and begin our conversation. I hadn’t seen her for over a year, ever since I left my job in Advertising, last summer.
We’re two minutes in and the typical work conversation begins. It’s dialogue filled with the latest work news. Buzz words sprinkled in alongside mentions of promotions and other, trivial matters. Once familiar, now an environment I’m no longer a part of — a setting I intentionally removed myself from.
OK, Internet. I’m trying to be a little too-cool-for-school with this one. The heart of the matter is when we finally get to real talk, Leah tells me to write. Actually, she urges me to. And she says if I wrote something — she’d actually read it. Cue the nervous laughter on the exterior, the self-doubt from within.
Author’s note: Leah’s a good friend. Scratch that, a true friend. The kind of magical being who believes in you and your craft — especially when you don’t. I’m lucky to have more than one of these in my adult life.
Nurture true relationships. They’ll make you feel a new kind of alive — help fill your Soul with the good stuff.
Back to our conversation.
Sure. I’ve thought of writing, something, somewhere, before; but, when one gives you Words of Affirmation (my first Love Language which I’ll get to in a later post) and says something like that, with a straight face on well, shit.
Still needing further validation, I timidly ask, “What would I write about?”
She replies, “Your personal journey, what it feels like to quit your corporate gig, and having the balls to get out into the world of the Unknown.” In other words, what it’s like on the other side. Cue Adele — still love that song.
I tell her, “I’ll think about it.” But inside, my heart is lit and Soul dancing like I’m Young, Wild & Free at Coachella 2012 (yep, that happened), as sharing my journey is something I wanted to do, but hadn’t the courage to start.
Sound familiar? Keep reading.
We’re all on this path towards reaching our total human potential. Or that’s the goal, right? I’m all for it (and one too many self-development books, in). At the point where I’m ready to STFU and start doing the work.
The real work. The work that scares the living shit out of me.
So here we are.
Welcome to the blog. The working title is The Story of a Soul or the Non-linear Life or STFU & Do the Work (per current mindset). This will be an honest account of my journey, present-day and past learnings. This world will stem beyond the pages of my journal and occasional Instagram post.
I hope you’ll follow along, find something of value while you’re here, and drop some Love if you do. We’ll real talk our way through this thing called Life and learn to love our Self, through the hard things — the blue bits. I’ll post every Tuesday.
In the meantime, thanks for reading. I’m glad you’re here.
X— MO
Author’s note: This post was written on September 6, 2016, with edits made on June 6, 2017, aka it took exactly nine months to hit “Publish.” A synchronicity, if I might say so myself. Baby steps, ya’ll.
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This post features a photo of Michelle taken by Amanda Gallant. She’s a photographer living in Los Angeles, CA. Check out Amanda’s work and contact her here.
Michelle Ortega is a creative writer, educator, and life coach living in Los Angeles, CA. She believes in Love and building stuff from the heart.
