I don’t feel qualified to write this blog.

It’s not that I lack the capability to write it. Or that someone else is better qualified to write about my experience. There’s just a gnawing sense of lacking something.

Some expertise that I don’t have about what it means to be a ‘real’ man. 

And I’ve had a lot of fear around starting it. 

I write my thoughts down most days in my journal, so it’s not a fear of recording my thoughts and experience. And I’ve shared some of my writing publicly in the past while doing the Ship 30 for 30 writing course, so it’s not a fear of writing and sharing it. 

And I’ve had imposter syndrome before. At every level of my education after high school. Throughout my time in the Navy. That’s only part of it. 

It’s specific to the topic that I want to write about. It’s a fear about my qualifications to write about what it means to be a man. On some level it’s a fear that I’m not ‘man enough.’ 

Fear that I haven’t done enough work on myself.

Fear that I haven’t done enough Men’s work.

Fear that I don’t have everything figured out like a man should.

Fear that I can’t pick-up women like a man should be able to.

Fear that I’m not educated enough on the topic.

I’m afraid to take the leap, even though I know deep down that this is what I’m supposed to be doing.

It’s not a slide deck and a steady paycheck. It’s something real. Something true to who I am on a deeper level. 

I’ve almost never been excited to go to work in my traditional career, but I get lit up when I’m writing, reading, talking, or thinking about this.

I know that I’m supposed to do this. Call it a mission. A calling. A purpose. Dharma.

This is why I’m here. 

So what am I truly afraid of? Failure? Success?

In A Return to Love, Marianne Williamson wrote that “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” 

Maybe it is my light that frightens me. Maybe I’m afraid of claiming my gifts and using them as they were meant to be used.

To make manifest the glory of God that is within me. 

To help men be better Men.

I tried to analyze my way around the fear. 

I tried to list all my possible objections, and figure out why they weren’t rational. At one point, I realized that I held two impossibly conflicting views around starting this blog: 1. That no one would read it, and 2. That many people would read it, and make fun of me for what I wrote.

I hoped that if I could denounce every possible source of my fear, the fear would go away. 

It didn’t work. It doesn’t work. 

On the flip side, I could list out all the possible ways that I am, in fact, qualified to write this blog.

I could list all the male dominated worlds I’ve inhabited, as I mentioned in my first post. I could list the friends that have responded positively when I’ve mentioned writing about this topic. I could list the times in my life that I’ve let my light shine in a group of men, and influenced them. I could think about my gift for vulnerability, and how that has touched men in my life.

Regardless, the fear, the imposter syndrome is still there.

But I’ve become grateful for the fear.

The fear lets me know that this is something worth doing. The fear tells me that I’m approaching my masculine edge. That I’m pushing myself to be the best, most authentic man I can be. 

If I want to grow as a man, I need to seek out my fear. To become comfortable with it. I don’t want to be afraid all the time, but I also never want to get complacent.

The fear lets me know that I’m in the arena, and that my place will never be with those cold and timid souls.

So what are you afraid of? Where is the healthy fear in your life that you’ve been avoiding? Your playing small does not serve the world.

Step into your fear.

It might just set you free.