Embracing the Unknown:

The Tender Work of Starting Before You’re Ready

If I’m honest, I’m still learning how to start new things and enjoy the process.
Not just the shiny kind — new projects, new recipes. Even those can be messy and filled with mistake for me.
But I’m talking about the vulnerable kind. The ones that stretch you. The ones that ask you to show up before you feel ready. Ask you to have a beginners mind and step into areas of unknown.

This story is about the sacredness of starting — and reclaiming your willingness to do new things again and again. To be the newbie in one area of your life at all times. To do new things with softness, curiosity, and self-compassion, instead of fear of failure or perfectionism or whatever else comes up.

A few weeks into the pandemic I was adjusting to my new life as a full time stay at home mom with a growing belly, in a new state and home with zero connections. I was on a walk around my new neighborhood listening to the first podcast episode of Unlocking US called FFT’s – you can listen to it here.  The host, Brené Brown and Barrett Guillen laid the ground work on experience of FFT’s - F***ing First Time - and what was required within as she began her podcasting journey during lockdown. It has been over 5 years since I’ve listened to this episode. What I recall she explains that we’ve lost the gumption to do new things and choose to stay in things that we’re already good at doing. She shares the danger of how staying in our comfort zone and by not trying new things we actually stop growing and truly living. Anyone else’s hand raised? I know mine is – especially in the areas that feels like choosing what I want -  like being a business owner or having a little homestead. Another thing that resonates for me is my expectations and all or nothing thinking.

Doing new things come with some ugh, it is hard and uncomfortable. It is vulnerable and awkward and humbling. Yet behind all “successful” FFT is a person that is brave, courageous and is willing. Someone willing to be in the messy and muck without all the answers yet present and trying. I also believe that it requires compassion toward yourself – to name the feeling – my therapist says if you name it you tame it. To allow yourself to risk being seen (and not seen), and to live in the gray, to hold duality and yourself. It also requires me to adjust my expectations and begin little by little while not becoming smaller or shrinking my dreams and goals.

Her words landed just at the right time — and still resonate today - especially now, as I bring Reviv Motherhood into the world.

I’ve been sitting on these services for a year now, trapped by fear, trying to avoid criticism, the desire for perfection (which is just an illusion and good thing perfect is boring), and the need to feel internally safe before offering something so personal — motherhood and postpartum support.

I’ve been thinking a lot about FFT’s and what has held me back.

When I observe my children experience FFT’s more often than not they are elated and eager to try. They’d don’t yet know failure. All they know is that trying is the success and if they didn’t succeed they try again. They know persistence, they don’t take failing personally and they find joy in the trying… doing it over and over again. They also believe in themselves. When I offer help they say no I don’t need it I can do it. It’s wild. They offer themselves compassion with a little pep talk and meet their mistakes with humor and a beautiful reframe offering themselves understanding. I hear them say things like it’s okay you didn’t get it the first time it will take time. Or uh oh I made a mistake  - it’s okay – mistakes are a yay. Their courage, compassion and bravery inspire me.  Even just today my daughter has been trying to throw a piece of food and catch it in her mouth. She was so confident, said she could do it 10+ times later she finally got it but all the times she didn’t she didn’t consider it a failure.

There’s a Bluey episode called “Born Yesterday” where Bandit, Bluey’s dad, pretends he doesn’t know anything. He says he has so much to learn because every experience is new. He approaches everything with curiosity, wonder, and playfulness. It’s as if the pressure is lifted — replaced with a willingness to learn, to make mistakes, to ask questions. Woven with that same sense of awe and delight that makes life feel alive again.

And I wonder…
When did FFTs become something bigger with the pressure to get it right rather than try?
When did fear become all-consuming that I stopped truly living?
When did it become all or nothing and no spaciousness for the messy middle?
When did perfectionism become the straight jacket in which I lived life?
When did I start taking life so seriously?

Maybe that’s the invitation:
to meet every “first time” with awe and wonder again —
To remove the pressure of perfect or getting it right
To remove the fear of failing – reminding ourselves that not having any FFTs is actually the failure.
To look at every experience as if it were the first time, curious, eagers and open.
To be approached with lots of play with fun at the core

Or maybe even to reframe FFT’s as a whole?

Can FFT’s be approached with delight, pure wonder and awe. Like seeing my children for the first time, seeing their smiles, or hearing their laughter light up my home, or watching the sunset or sunrise the first time. Seeing the colors of fall fill the earth with its vibrant colors, or the offering summer in is radiance - the hues of all the flowers and growing grass that comes in a thousand shades of green. Taking it all in - a gift to receive and behold. So that when I go to do that new thing, maybe, just maybe, I see it though that lens.

Every beginning feels tender, doesn’t it?
This space — Reviv Motherhood — was born from my own unbecoming to become. A journey of deep grief, pain, anger… and dare I say rage at times. However it was fueled by deep presence, abiding love, and devotion to myself, and my children. Has been a deep remembering and a reviving of myself.

 Motherhood isn’t about getting it right but making it right, its about showing up fully as yourself – imperfect yet whole and beautiful. To be present with what is and what isn’t.  

This is my first official blog post for Reviv Motherhood.
This is my own FFT — a beginning of my business launch and putting my heart and voice into this work.
Here’s to trying new things with playfulness, even when it’s messy, awkward, and beautifully imperfect.

If you’re standing on the edge of your own beginning, I see you.
What “first time” are you in right now?
Maybe it’s motherhood, a new job, a new home, a new city.

Can you meet these FFTs with openness, grace, courage, and awe?

Let’s remind each other that the unknown isn’t something to fear — it’s where we meet ourselves again.

Let’s walk this path of firsts together.