Only when you’re ready

My daughter’s first Christmas show was a painful experience for her. You could see her biting her lip and looking around unhappily while the other children were singing and clapping their hands. It was not a surprise when she started crying after a while because she didn’t want to be on the stage.

That day she told me “Mummy, I don’t like people.”

Two years later she was on stage in a different Christmas show, dressed as an Eastern dancer. Off she went, giving herself fully in a sequence of energetic movements with her hands and hips. She was truly enjoying being on the stage.

That day she told me: “Mummy, I love dancing and singing.”

Sometimes you aren’t ready to give your all, to be fully onstage, and that doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of doing it or that you aren’t made for it.

It could be that it’s too soon for you, or that you aren’t feeling too confident, or it could be that this is not truly the way you wanted to dance or to sing.

When we have the opportunity to play our own notes, suddenly we can discover things about ourselves that surprise us. Allowing ourselves to express in what we do not only enhances creativity and self-confidence; we might also discover the courage and joy associated with doing something we truly love.

#notready #notyet #toosoon