Embrace Your Insecurities Day 6: Eat Shit and Thrive

Falling in love for the first time was euphoric. It was so pure that it transcended logic. All the ways that we weren't compatible didn’t matter. It felt amazing, and every bone in my body wanted to trust that feeling. But then as things started crashing to the ground, it left a void. It left a void because I believed in the relationship more than myself. I didn't believe I could just easily find a better match. Especially since I had no idea how to get women to like me.

It wasn't until recently that I discovered I could actually be quite good at attracting women. It was not because I learned how to talk to women better, or feel more confident, or dress in a way that made me look sexier, it was because I was able to work with my negative emotions instead of against them. That’s it. It was only resistance to insecurity that made me feel insecure. The moment I stopped trying to not be insecure I could choose to be something else. Like fun and playful.

I found success because I was willing to be myself, not because I successfully became someone else. This showed me that I didn’t have to change to become the more I was wanting in my life, I just had to recognize worthy I already was. And that I wasn't limited to the people I already knew liked me, I could fall in love with the unknown. Because if no one in front of you is ringing all your bells, then the love of your life is someone not in front you. She's out there in the unknown, beyond where you're currently looking.

Doing More of What Works

Soon after making this discovery, a series of synchroncities led me to a life-changing book, and a radical idea for personal growth. Instead of trying to put more effort into existing relationships, I was going to work on my relationship with Insecurity itself. After all, that's what gave me the confidence to find success with women in the first place. And after a conversation with a friend this 30 day experiment was born.

It only took a few days of working with insecurity, and getting over my initial fears, for me to realize that insecurity wasn’t a burden, it was my soulmate. Because when I was "with" insecurity, I was more like myself than any of the times I tried to hide insecurity or distance myself from her.

Within two days of the experiment, I rendezvoused with someone who lit up my heart like no one I’d ever met. And for the first time I was in a relationship that wasn’t rooted in insecurity. She didn’t need my reassurance or for me to behave any certain way for her to be OK. She didn’t need me to love her to feel loved. She wanted us to be totally open and honest because she was ready to handle the truth of anything that might come up.

Since we didn’t need to work on reassuring each other to maintain a feeling of love and worthiness, we just amplified each other's love and worthiness instead. To the point where I realize now how little I used to think of myself. Insecure me wasn't just playing small in terms of my actions, I was completely overlooking the bigness that I had already become. I was selling myself short, while being long on self-doubt. But I didn't realize it until I was around someone who could see me differently, and remind me that I could see me differently too.

Of course I loved myself for all the same reasons she loved me. But my love was covered in self doubt and "not good enough." It was conditional and largely based on how "well" I was doing in life. Like I needed to compare favorably to others to feel good about myself. And since I was big dreamer, I needed to compare favorably to the best of the best. Not in all areas of life, but just the areas that were most important to me, (tapping human potential, living an unforgettable life, loving with a depth that's absolutely life changing). And it felt like I was very far from accomplishing these goals, from measuring up well at these metrics. So I saw myself as "less than," even though I was capable of becoming so much more.

Eat Shit and Thrive

Love is so easy and natural once you've found the right person: The right person for bringing out the real you. Because then you can just be yourself. You can be who you're inspired to be around her, and she will see that wonderfulness and reflect it back to you, so you can own who you really are regardless of your circumstances. You don't need to be good at something to know that you're worthy of love. You can suck at it and still love yourself. Because what appears to be a shit creation is really just the compost that's fertilizing the more that's underground.

Nobody walks past someone fertilizing a garden and says, "That's total shit. Why are you bothering to plant that shit, it's just going to grow into more shit!" No one says that because we know the shit is not what's growing, the shit is what's feeding that tiny seed below ground.

That's what our insecurities are. They are big clumps of fertilizer that smell like shit. And if we mistake that for who we are, we will think we're shit. But we are not our insecurities. We are the tiny seeds that those insecurities are here to grow. Those insecurities will feed us as we break them down because those insecurities contain the nutrients of all our past experiences and failures. Nothing is more rich than that. And nothing will make us more rich than being willing to grow from that.

It's so weird how we can plant a tiny seed into a large clump of fertilizer and know with certainty that the seed that will grow, not the shit; but when it comes to our own shit, we try to keep it separate. We don't plant our desires in our insecurities because we are afraid those desires will turn to shit, instead of that shit turning into our desires. And because of that we separate our desires from the shit that will make them grow, and then blame the shit for holding us back.

Shit isn't holding us back, it's our resistance to immersing ourselves in it that's crippling our growth. The shit you've picked up in your lifetime is a wealth of experience. If you want to experience that wealth, you have to plant yourself in the shit and let those tiny seeds of desire spring roots. The shit will break down and a new you will grow up. And once you bloom and come out smelling like roses, no one will care or credit that you built your empire out of shit. They will just assume you were always this way. And that's why you succeeded and they didn't. But deep down you will know that shit was the secret to your success. And that the insecurity you harvest today will set you up for a lifetime of success.

Hard Work or Organic Growth?

People get praised for hard work, no one wants to say, "I just sat in my shit and grew from it." They want to make it seem like they overcame their shit. Like they had to conquer it to succeed. But they didn't conquer shit. They either grew from it, or they worked so hard to try and make themselves lovable despite their shit. But the ones who worked so hard to try and outrun their shit will never be happy. Because conditional love is always temporary at best. And the only reason they seem like such high achievers is because they're so afraid of their shit that they have to work their asses off to outrun it.

That's not the life for me. Life is only hard if you resist the natural creative process and think you have to accomplish everything on your own. I want to disrupt that habit of working yourself to the bone so you can feel better than others and therefore worthy of love. I want to feel worthy of love because I'm worthy of shit. And shit is the most loving, life giving force on Earth.

Plant yourself in your shit, learn to grow roots and feed off it, and then spring up to meet the sun. That's how we were meant to grow from shit to success. And that's exactly what I intend to do next.

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Embrace Your Insecurities, The Full Series:
Day 0: Exceed Your Love Limits
Day 1: Coming Out of the Closet
Day 2: The Transformative Power of Insecurity
Day 3: Opening the Door to Love
Day 4: Sexual Incompatibility and Innovation
Day 5: Insecurity and Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone