Three Things I Didn’t Expect
Feedback, Fear, and Finding Our Rhythm
2 Things Tuesday
(When in doubt roar it out)
When I hit send on my manuscript, I thought the hardest part was behind me.
I’d already written about addiction, about moving back into my parents’ basement at 40, about divorce and health scares that left me cracked open. I thought the page had taken it all.
Then Judith, my editor, did what good editors do: Handed me both, the praise I wanted and the questions I needed.
The kind that don’t stroke your ego, they test it.
And I hated it. For a minute.
My chest got tight.
My nervous system went into that old familiar spin: you’re failing, you’re not good enough, you’ll never get it right.
But I sat with it. And here are three things I didn’t expect to learn:
1- Silence is dangerous.
Polite praise feels good, but it doesn’t change you.
In health, in relationships, in writing, silence keeps us stuck.
The questions that sting, the feedback that makes you squirm. That’s where the growth lives. In the voice under your noise, the one you can’t outrun.
Avoidance doesn’t protect us. It cages us.
2- Control is an illusion.
I wanted my manuscript to be untouchable. Flawless. Just like I once wanted my body, my marriage, my whole life to look perfectly in place.
But control is brittle. It cracks under pressure.
What lasts isn’t control, it’s adaptability.
The rhythm to return, to rewrite, to rebuild when things shift.
3- This book isn’t just mine.
Judith’s questions weren’t about tearing down my words, they were about building something that serves you, something that serves us. This process reminded me: the 2 Things movement is not my story alone.
It’s our rhythm. Our return.
2 Things To Do Today
Thing 1: Breath Practice – Lion’s Breath (Simhasana)
Inhale deeply through your nose.
Open your mouth wide, stick out your tongue, and exhale with a loud “haaaa.”
Repeat 3 times.
Why this works: Lion’s breath dumps tension fast, shakes out the perfectionist voice, and interrupts the nervous system spin with a release that’s raw and unpretty, exactly what editing (and life) asks of us.
Bonus points if you shake your head and upper body like scary lion while you do it.
Thing 2: Kind Action – Break One Rule Today
Take one place you’ve been policing yourself, food, movement, work, parenting and break the damn rule.
Eat the thing.
Move for joy instead of metrics.
Rest before you “earn” it.
Notice how your body feels when you trade rules for rhythm.
Mantra: Perfect is a prison. Rhythm is freedom.
Let’s talk:
When has feedback, in health, work, or life, stung but made you stronger?
Drop it here. This is how we strengthen the 2 Things movement together.
Until next time, keep going, one breath, one kind action, repeat
Ben
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I had been working with you and your training and nutrition program for about a year and a half when my appendix ruptured. I was recovering from surgery, feeling anxiety, and I was limited in what physical activity I could do…no strength training, only walking, until I was cleared by the surgeon. I knew that eating the proper nutrition was important for healing, but I was eating whatever I wanted to reward myself for what I had experienced. We had a coaching call and you called me out on that. It was difficult to hear but I knew it was what I needed to do. From that call, I kept a food diary to track what I was eating and emailed it to you each week. It helped me to be accountable and to make better choices to aid in healing and in properly fueling my body.
So much to think about. I was particularly struck by "Avoidance doesn't protect us. It cages us". I think this is so true physically when avoiding clearing away clutter, and emotionally when trying to avoid situations or people. I find when I try to avoid and I change my timelines and sometimes my day and actually waste precious time all in the name of avoidance. Yikes!!!