The Willingness Is the Thing

Tuesday Tidings #32: on showing up, integrating, and building confidence

The wood-slat, very low patio chair is solid and cradles me much like a sling carrier might. Right in front of me, the low brick wall serves as the perfect perch for my bare feet. And on the other side of the wall, the garden bed filled with wildflowers, lavender, tall clover and milkweed, beckons the pollinators from near and far.

This is my true happy place.

And for the past three mornings, afternoons and evenings, whether in the direct boiling hot afternoon sun, the temperate early morning shade, or the sultry gloaming hour, I have sat in this spot. And pondered. And rested. With forward momentum.

It is a new-to-me state. Not quite resting and not quite in motion. Not in an indecisive way. I’m both still and moving at once. It’s a deep breath in and also an exhalation in anticipation of what’s next. It’s a particular stillness that happens when you’ve been moving for a long time and you finally stop and let everything catch up to you. But it’s not exhaustion. It’s integration—that moment when all the different parts of you come together in one, cohesive whole.

I can feel it as a full body sensation—a calm interlude to ensure that all that I have absorbed settles in and from which the next steps will emerge.

For the past three weeks, I have been in three different spaces—some physical, some not—which required me to show up fully in different ways and for different reasons.

In one of them, I recorded two podcast episodes. Each conversation required me to be present, curious, and actively listening. That’s always the ask when I record. It’s also my commitment. And I have learned over the past year that afterwards, I need time to recharge.

Another space was my somatic training weekend. It required a different kind of showing up—not for someone else’s story but for my own. My own body, my own knowing, my own capacity to stay with the hard thing instead of moving past it. I wrote about that in last week’s Tuesday Tidings, “The Risk of Showing Up”—the trust that’s required to risk being seen and heard, and the reward on the other side of taking that risk. In that space, I stepped out (more like, stepped in) in a way I haven’t before. And I felt it. For days. Not as a crash, but as a calm, yet energized clarity within myself. It built my confidence (my word for 2026) in big and small ways.

The third space was much harder to show up in but for less obvious reasons. Mainly because it was a different kind of space and it required a different (if similar) kind of action. I applied for a board position within an institution that matters deeply to me, one I have not only watched but also participated in from the inside out, one whose complexities and challenges I understand in a way that is not abstract. I resisted applying because of the time commitment it would require.

At least that’s the story I told myself to justify not taking the action.

But underneath, my hesitation was more about being nervous. Not because I’m unsure of wanting to contribute and not because I don’t think I have something to offer. I was unsure because I lacked confidence—there’s that word again. Just as quickly as I had built my confidence in one space the weekend before, it escaped me in this space. Oh, it’s the space that matters as much as anything else. Not only the space—but what is required of me within it. Right.

And in this space (of applying for something), I would be required to name my experience—the things I have already done. Not as pride. Not as performance. As fact. Basically, it would require standing on (and in) the truth of who I am today without minimizing or aggrandizing it, and allowing myself to be undeterred by what I have not done and therefore don’t know. Yet.

But then all the appointments I had scheduled towards the end of last week canceled. The space around me opened up. The excuses I had not to do it fell by the wayside. And the nudge I felt within me to go ahead and submit got clearer. And louder.

This was another opportunity for me to risk showing up. And not without help. As I prepared my application, and before I hit submit, I asked a bestie to read through it and give me feedback. The words she had for me were the same I got from somebody else a few weeks ago about something else. “You have mad skills and a huge amount of experience…own it. Don’t sell yourself short.”

Apparently I needed to hear that (again). I know my tendency is to make myself small because I’m afraid I will be too much. It shows up in this kind of space—the kind where a list of credentials that aim to quantify what I know comes into play. And being willing to admit that to myself and to ask someone for help is part of the work. Not so that their confidence in me takes the place of my own, but so that I don’t have to go it alone. It is then up to me to be willing to take the next step towards where I want to go—or not.

That’s what I keep coming back to from this week: the willingness that powers the action…to show up, to do the thing and to make a space. Each time, it is a step towards fully embodying that confidence without puffing up or shrinking back—to allow it to settle in. And each time it does, it builds toward a new baseline from which to take the next step.

Which is why today, I’m more willing than I’ve ever been to let the opportunities come (rather than force them) and walk into the unknown spaces when they appear.

The risks don’t get smaller. The willingness gets bigger.

Where do you feel the nudge to show up—despite the reasons to not?

I would love to hear from you. Hit reply or leave a comment.

---

Tuesday Morning Meditation: 6.16.25

The willingness to walk into the room with the fear and the uncertainty is what builds confidence, not the outcome or the result.

Coming up:

Tomorrow I’m releasing the second episode of Becoming the Proof. My guest is Annie Herman—yoga teacher, studio founder, mom, wife, part-time school teacher. She built Queens Community Yoga in Queens, New York City because she needed a room, a space, where she could talk about the real things. The things you think about when you’re a kid staring out the window. I’ve been carrying her example of willingness with me ever since I left. Listen in Wednesday to hear the full story.

Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to The Stories That Sparkle, like or comment on this post, and share with others. It goes a long way to support the work I do and helps me capture more women’s stories and amplify more women’s voices.

And, if you have a story you want to share, either as a written piece or as a guest on the podcast, this space is very much open to submissions.