#71: scraping your own knees

its time to let go of being "wise beyond your years" and start living for the season of life that you're in

Hello and welcome or welcome back to Caught Up in Char’s Web!

If you are new here, my name is Char and I post about once per month - you can expect to find reflections on personal growth, meaningful connections, how to get creatively unblocked, and finding wonder in everyday moments as we navigate the very messy, beautiful journey of becoming more ourselves.

Alright… let’s get into it!!

PSA: I started posting these on YouTube!!!! Click here to watch instead.

Issy Wood, Self-portrait 27, 2022

Above is an audio recording of me reading this post for those who prefer listening. Thank you, Philipp Kaspar, for the intro music!

As someone who has often been referred to as "mature for my age" and "an old soul," I have developed a fear of fucking up and scraping my own knees. From a young age, I had this theory that if I spent time with people who are older than me and carefully studied their mistakes and lessons, I could evade them myself.

Heartbreak? Oh no, not for me. I watched my sister go through it so I don't have to.

Pursuing a career that I love? Hmmm probably not. I have seen other people do that and they end up having to go back to a corporate job.

Falling in love with your best friend? No. Not worth the risk of losing the friendship.

Those of us who have been complimented for our precociousness tend to exhaust ourselves and deplete our options by ruling out anything that we've seen others fail at. We wade through life as though we are our own helicopter moms, constantly scanning the horizon for any potential threat to our hard-earned title of "wise beyond our years."

This self-awareness, or rather relentless preoccupation with the mistakes of others, can backfire by making us feel small and paralyzed. We think that we are helping ourselves by tending to our path with such care, but really, we are doing a great disservice by trying to fast-track our way to "success."

It doesn't work! I know. I am really sorry to say. I wanted this tactic to work so damn badly for my whole life. I really thought that I could study up on other people's attachment styles and what went wrong, and other people's career decisions and how they could have been better, and then get a gold star for my life performance at every step of the way. But as soon as I realized that... wah wah wah, I can't... my life got so much fucking better. Like infinitely better.

Do you know what a gift it is to have the pleasure of scraping your knees? The experiential raw vulnerable pleasure of having the privilege to try something uncertain and see where it leads you? Do you know how much more fun and fruitful it is to be willing to make your own mistakes instead of being paralyzed by inaction?

I'll never forget sitting in the office of my thesis advisor in college. With a stomach full of anxiety about writing this 100-page paper (about the persimmon fruit lmao topic for another time), I sat there probably trying to prove my own wisdom and maturity by asking questions about her life and routines. Wow, I thought to myself. She's in her early 40s (I think?), has two young kids, 2 full time jobs, a partner, she exercises (and looks great!)... how the hell does she do it all? I desperately wanted to know her morning routine, what time she wakes up, how late she has to work at night, how much/little help she has with her kids, if she has any time for herself, so I could make sure that I was prepared by the time I got there. I formulated this into a question and lofted it her way. She looked at me sweetly, like someone older than you does right before they are about to deliver a hard but freeing truth:

Char. Stop trying to prepare for life circumstances that you have not arrived at yet. You are 20! Enjoy that. Stress about your homework and summer internships. Stop trying to prepare for being a mom of 2 in your thirties/forties. You're not there yet and there is nothing to gain by 'practicing' for that season now. Live your life for the season that you are in.

I think about that moment several times per week. And even though I have gotten a lot better at knee scraping, this tendency still has insidious ways of creeping back in without me knowing. Any time uncertainty arises, my "old soul" trick kicks into gear. "How can we evade risk in this decision?" is the question lurking beneath the surface.

Issy Wood, Swan/He Won’t 2, 2019

I am in the midst of what feels like a big transition. One in which my hobbies, job, career, and calling all are merging at the seams. I am experimenting a lot and as a result, my good old loving fears have cropped up with a vengeance.

The question that I have been asking (with a lot of fear) is "how will I build a fulfilling life doing what I love without losing myself in the process?"

There is a part of me that is absolutely terrified that in the process of the transition that I'm in, I will need to turn myself into a circus monkey in order to make money. That I will cross the boundary of sharing my vulnerabilities for connection and will expose too much of myself in the name of trying to make it as a creative. Or I will get too swept up in the marketing of what I do and lose sight of my actual intention.

So I have been spinning myself in circles to try to avoid making any move that may rock the boat. The "old soul" part of me looks for any example that I can find of people who have tried what I think I want to do and failed. This part desperately wants to collect evidence of how it could go wrong so that if I do try and fail, it can laugh and say "I told you so! You should have known better. Shame on you. Guess you're not so wise beyond your years after all."

The problem with this way of thinking is that it preconceives the purpose of trying something out. But, as life has it, we never really know the truth of *why* we made a decision until we get to the other side of it.

For example, my friend Jacey (fellow "old soul" "mature for your age" "knee-scrape avoider" - reformed now tho!) desperately wanted to start a podcast a few years ago. But sooo many people told her that the market for it was saturated. That she'd start and give up after realizing how much work it really was. But her desire to do it continued burning and so she took a stab at it. She went for the knee scrape. And then she stopped after 2 years and 70+ episodes. The part of her that was afraid to start because she may end up quitting in the future could look at this and go, "seeeeeee I told you this would happen Jacey! you never should have started that podcast." But guess what? That part sounds fucking ridiculous to her now. You know why? Because it completely misses the whole point of what the podcast brought to her. It wasn't about starting and continuing forever. That is not how she ended up measuring its success. It was about the number of life altering conversations she had along the way, the confidence that she built in speaking on topics that she cared about, the troves of people that wrote to her with confessions of how seen her words made them feel, the business lessons she learned, the job that she got using her podcast as evidence of her passion for mental health, and ultimately... her boyfriend. Their first conversation they had was about their shared passion for podcasting and had she not started it, they likely would not have had the same initial connection that they did.

So how do we get over the fear of scraping our own knees?, one may ask.

Overcome your tendency to see everything as so black and white. That's how. See if you zoom in on the root fear that is stopping you from moving in the direction that you want to go, you will find that the fear is telling you that there are only two ways to proceed. And both come with consequences.

In my case, right now, this binary thinking sounds like this:

1. You can become successful as a creative person by sharing more of yourself online but the consequences will be that you get swept away by the distractedness and vanity of social media and will lose yourself in the process OR

2. You can ignore social media fully and instead try to grow your coaching business via word of mouth clientele but then you will have a full roster of clients and you will burn yourself out by spending too much of your day being vulnerable with others and it will detract from your ability to be a good friend, daughter, girlfriend, sister, coach, writer, etc.

Do you see what is wrong with that set up? I am doomed to fail no matter how I proceed in this way of thinking. And neither of them are true. They are super black and white and completely missing the nuance. When I relax back into my wisdom, I could offer like 15 more alternatives to how this could play out that feel a lot more freeing and true. For instance, I might find that if I take on a few more coaching clients and continue sharing and growing my online presence, I will have more to share. I will continue refining my skills and improving my delivery. I may have multiple streams of income and actually position myself to live out the career that I've dreamt of since I was a little girl without falling into a daily moral conundrum about how to proceed.

I use this an example to show you what the fear of scraping your knees sounds like. It sounds like there are only a few options and they both suck and someone has already done it before you so there's no room for you to even try. How depressing!!!!!!

Issy Wood, “study for then again 2,” 2022

Life gets so much better when you start listening to voices that sound like this instead.

"There's another way of looking at that"

"What if you allow yourself to take a step forward and see what happens on the other side?"

"Did you know that if you start and try something and gather more information, you can update your thinking and adjust accordingly?"

"Hey, have you ever thought about the times in life in which you've grown the most? Haven't those been when you were willing to take a step forward before you were ready?"

God, how much better is that!? I could listen to those voices all day. Because they are true and they feel true. My nervous system relaxes when I hear them, which means my intuition has room to come back online.

Now, I can hear myself think again. When transfixed by my binary thinking brain, I find myself experiencing whiplash between the platitudes that each option or voice assigns itself to. Cultural soundbites like "If it’s too much too soon, it’s often too good to be true" or "Leap and the net will appear" but also "Don't quit your day job!" overwhelm me fully and add to this paralysis. But the second I reconnect with MY OWN TRUTH, and I'm able to see the nuance again, I can see all of those nuggets of wisdom and their inherent contradictions as kind of .... funny. Like if the opposite of the truth is also true... then I guess we really do just gotta fuck around and find out where we land within it all!

So, once you have settled down a bit, seen a few more options, and can hear yourself think again, there is one more thing to do to overcome this "old soul" affliction. That is, take some mother fucking action.

How many times have you wanted to try something new and your first action item is to… research? For me, it's pretty much all the time. Which isn't inherently a bad thing. A little research and making well-informed decisions is all well and good. But that's not what I am talking about. I am talking about the crippling perfectionism type of research. The type that tells you you cannot begin the thing you want to do until you have turned every stone, looked at the outcome of any person who has tried this before you, and had 4 therapy sessions about it. That type of research is detrimental to your well-being.

When I finally admitted my lifelong dream of being a coach to my boyfriend, I was shocked by his response. "Who would be a good practice client for you?," he asked. Practice client? Woah woah woah dude you're getting way ahead of yourself. First, I must go to an institution for a few years before I have anything worth my salt to share. "Okay, you could do that," he said. "Or, you could reach out to a distant family friend and see if they'd have any interest in doing your program."

Well, damn. I thought to myself. That sounds enticing but I have wayyyyy to much imposter syndrome to do that. I paused. Wait, actually. Maybe I don't anymore? Maybe that is an old story. Maybe I am done with research always needing to be my first step. Maybe I will try to reach out to someone - what's the worst that can happen? They are not interested. Perfect, I can reach out to someone else. Still not interested? Okay, then we try a different approach.

So, I did it. And I am absolutely in love with my clients and the program that I am creating. In terms of getting accreditation and continuous learning, well I am a student at my core and one of my lifelong dreams has always been to go back to school so I will absolutely do this at some point. But right now, what I am working on myself and with my clients is learning how to take the first step without needing to feel fully ready. Because readiness is not real. What the hell does it mean to be ready? It's different for everyone and we all came here to learn our own lessons.

There is so much power in realizing that just because someone tried something and learned their own set of lessons, doesn't mean it's bad, wrong, or too late for you to try it too.

That is where our confidence is built. By trying new things, showing yourself that you can, and getting to know yourself better.

The more I have allowed myself to try things out, even if I walk into it knowing that others have failed and there is a part of me that can anticipate what the very mistake and lesson may be, the more confident and self-knowing I have become. I have dabbled a lot in the past 3 years. From where I live to who I spend my time with to starting 4 new projects to dating my best friend to living with friends as roommates and so much more. I have done a lot of fucking around and finding out. And the amount of self-trust and confidence that I have gained throughout the process astounds me. And definitely astounds my family, too, who sometimes look at who and what I share and they're like "damn girl, you really are putting yourself out there!" And yes, I am.

Because I would so much rather try and see what happens, collect my own lessons along the way, and encourage others to do the same than trying to pass along some platitudes that I've heard from others. My lived experience is the richest asset I have. And yours is too. So trust that. And please, for the love of god, let's put to rest this fixation with being "wise beyond our years." Because, as

Haley Nahman

talks about in "aging out of precociousness," we will eventually turn 35 and then no one cares if you are 35 but sound like you’re 42.

So let go of the chokehold that being called "wise beyond your years" has put you in. Ask yourself if your knee jerk reaction to taking the first step towards something may be a little too safe. When you are trapped between two options that both sound pretty bad, scary, and black/white, pull back a bit. See if you can find another option. Ask yourself if you could bring an internal moderator in to look at these two options and poke holes in their binary logic. And remember that if you are feeling battered around by cultural soundbites and platitudes, it's because the opposite of the truth is also the truth so in order to find what resonates with you... sometimes you've gotta scrape your own knees, sweet pea.

Thanks for Getting Caught Up in Char's Web with me this week!

Catch you here sometime soon.

Oh, and if you are interested in my coaching program, you can book a free 30 min consult here!

---

Xandra’s Curation Corner

Xandra Beverlin is an incredible art curator at Pace Gallery, co-founder of PULSE, and dear friend, who so generously pulls pieces for this newsletter each week. I text her a few short bullets about the main themes of Char’s Web and she replies with the most thoughtful articulations of the artists that come to mind. This is my favorite part of writing my newsletter. Do yourself the favor of reading her curator’s notes!

“This newsletter has such a distinct way of extrapolating upon themes of life that feel very pertinent to current affairs in an almost psychic, magical way — and this week is no exception. At a party I hosted this past Friday, a good friend pulled me aside to specifically praise advice I had given regarding her romantic relationship: specifically denoting how she felt that what I had said was very “wise”, and commenting on how I must have been an “old soul” in my earlier years.

This really stuck with me throughout the weekend — not only because it was messaging I ubiquitously received when I was growing up as an only child (deeply isolated and voraciously reading books at the dinner table), but because it felt incredibly ironic given that I have no real experience in a long-term romantic relationship myself. I do really stand by the insights I had, but at the end of the day, what gave me any sense of authority to think that I have anything to say on the matter at all? Perhaps this tension is exactly what we’re getting at this week.

A relatively young artist (b. 1993) who elegantly depicts this aspect of scraping many different knees in pursuit of honing their craft is the indomitable Issy Wood. One of my favorite artists of all time, Issy is a brilliant scientist of composition: a visionary painter with a very sharp eye for figuration. She’s a master at combining textures and objects in ways that initially seem dissimilar but ultimately combine into a symphony of form. On top of all of this, Issy also maintains a thriving musical career after a discovery in her early stages of experimentation by Mark Ronson, pushing in multiple directions, leaping towards multiple nets.

Admittedly, this is a difficult theme for which to draw a direct curatorial correlation - and perhaps I’m just biased and want to constantly elevate Issy - but I do think there’s an inherent risk for an artist of any kind in diluting their brand when they even attempt to exist in multiple disciplines. Rather than a fear for Issy, this is simply a modus operandi of constantly challenging oneself to expand - and I think there’s a “wisdom" that all of us can take from that.” - Xandra Beverlin

---

All past issues of Char’s Web are available for reading here. A few samples below…

68 - how to get rich
69 - how to ask better questions
70 - what happens when you share yourself vulnerably online?