So I’m doing the Landmark advanced forum, which is going to be pretty intense. If you’ve done Landmark, you know that it involves a change in your perspective. That’s the best that I can explain it, since the actual changes vary from person to person.

It took me two Landmark forums to realize that I am a powerful person and that I’m hiding that because I think that no one wants to hear it.

A long time ago, my dad told me a saying that was meant to impart the wisdom to not brag about your achievements. He said, “Nobody wants to hear that you’re successful, Erica.” Of course, I took this very personally and have carried it around for some 10 years or so. Every time I opened my mouth to say who I was, that annoying voice in my head stopped me with the words, “Erica, nobody wants to hear it.”

Now that’s silly. But don’t we all do that in a way? We talk ourselves out of the things that matter most to us because we believe that no one cares about us, or that it couldn’t possibly work out well.

I got up in front of 84 people today. The instructor asked who I was, and I opened my mouth, not knowing quite what would come out. What came out of my mouth was the following (word for word):

“Who I really am is a passionate, motivated, kick-butt entrepreneur who is already successful at the age of 23.”

After I said it, I just stood there for a minute with my mouth slightly open, as I heard cheers from the audience. And, for the first time in my life, I knew it was true. I AM a passionate, powerful entrepreneur — running an amazingly successful business that a lot of people could only dream of. And all this at an age when most people are struggling to find jobs that pay more than $10 an hour.

All of the rest of what I portray — my supposed lack of self-confidence; my “aw, shucks” attitude when other people praise me; my “I don’t need anybody” routine — it’s all an act. It’s an act that’s meant to cover up who I really am, all because of that one silly voice in my head that I let stop me from being the amazing person I always knew I was.

Tonight, I am creating the possibility of being an inspiration to others. I am not too young to inspire and motivate other people. I am not too young to get up in front of an audience and motivate the crowd. I am not too young, too naive, or too inexperienced to do anything that I set my mind to and work hard at.

I hope that tonight, reading this inspires and motivates you to do something that you haven’t had the courage to do. Until tonight, I haven’t had the courage to drop my act and be strong and powerful. Until tonight, I thought I needed to hide behind “I don’t need any help” or “Nobody wants to hear that I’m successful.”

I don’t.

The act stops here.

Go out and be that strong and powerful person. The world needs more people who are willing to be independent, motivated, and outgoing. Don’t be afraid to be who you really are. It’s the only way that you will truly shine in this life.

This is for those of you who know me pretty well. I’m blogging this here so next time this happens and you ask “Why?” or “What did I do?”, I can just point you here.

I sometimes go through this phase where I get overly emotional and, for lack of better words, collapse into a pile of tears. The phase usually lasts until I go to sleep and sleep it off, and then I’m okay the next day.

Since I can feel myself going through one right now, but no one else is here so I’m not distracted, I’m going to blog what happens. I don’t really think there’s a “fix” for it; I’ve had them for 10+ years. But perhaps blogging about it will lead to a better understanding on everyone’s part.

1) The first thing that has to happen is that I’m feeling overwhelmed and/or pressured to get something done on a deadline. This, in itself, will not cause it, but it has to be there first.
2) Something pushes me over the edge. I’ll be honest — about 99% of the time it’s a phone call. I have a seething hate for phone calls, especially when they wake me up in the morning. Today it happened to be a phone call from a grumpy client.
3) Once 2 is over, I’ve been pushed over my limit of stress for the day, and my brain shuts down. (I don’t know why it shuts down, but it does.) The stress hits me full-on and I feel nauseous. I’m unable to focus on anything except that there is way too much for me to do. I feel completely overwhelmed. My instincts tell me to run, so I do… this is when you’ll see me sleeping it off or playing a game — anything to get away from the stress.
4) I wake up totally exhausted and grudgingly get whatever work I need to do done.

I don’t know how to break this cycle, other than not feeling overwhelmed in the first place. Do any of you go through something like this? If you do, I am open to suggestions.

Instead of going to the party at Andrew’s house tonight, I went and saw Valorie at the hospital. She gave birth this morning. Cameron is a healthy baby boy weighing 7 pounds, 6 ounces. He’s absolutely beautiful. I got to see Valorie’s parents walk in and the looks on their faces. They are grandparents for the first time! Doug (Valorie’s husband) was there, too, and he was beaming. Valorie was still in some pain, but the kid was so happy and peaceful that it made her feel better.

It was really special to be there for that. I have never really seen and held a newborn (little Cameron had spent fewer than 12 hours on this earth when I picked him up.) I guess tonight I realized that I really do want kids someday. Kids are very special creatures, and there’s something magical about looking into a tiny face that has never really known all of the trials on this earth. I have to say that I am moved.

I was reading through some old emails from 1999 and 2000, and discovered one with this choice quote in it (directed to me and written in early 2000):

“Its funny, it seems to me that on tv the only thing that girls harp on guys for is saying (or not saying) ‘I love you.’ But you want to hear ‘I was wrong’ or ‘You were right.’ What a strange girl you are.”

I think that says a lot about me, and not all of that is good. I am still not sure what to do with this information. But I think it will change the way I deal with certain things.

I am so amazed. Just when I thought I was going to be okay, WHAM! Life decided to smack me around a little bit more.

I am convinced that whoever set my life’s path (me, perhaps?) had a great sense of humor. Either that or God just really likes irony. I’m not sure which.

First, a quick update: Kung fu was good. This class starts out by teaching you tai chi, which I am learning now. After a few months, you progress into kung fu. Tai chi is interesting and I’ll definitely ride out the month with them. I’m a bit sore from all the exercises I did yesterday, but that’s because I was out of shape to begin with. This will help get me back in shape. That’s a good thing.

A couple things happened today that I am still reeling over. I called FG, very upset over some things that happened early this afternoon, and left him quite a distraught voicemail. He IM’ed a few minutes later and said “Want to meet somewhere?” Grateful to get out of the house and have someone to talk to who would understand, I drove up to a local food place and a long conversation ensued.

I wrote an interesting email today. I didn’t realize that I was still holding some pain in hurt inside of me for something that happened with an ex-boyfriend a while back. A friend of mine is going through one of those stages where he is insisting on having only non-serious relationships. Now, I did this for a long time as well. In fact, I have a friend who is 20 years older than I am, single, and who is still going through this stage.

Anyway, I told my friend that it really made me lose some respect for him to find out that he was basically being a player (as FG would put it.) He fired back with “Who are you to tell me that you don’t have respect for me when you just went through this whole thing with C…” (etc.)

The email I wrote back to him was pretty interesting even to me. I didn’t really know where I was going to go with it, only that I had to explain to my friend that I’d been through all this before. I also had to explain why I won’t go through it again; why I no longer get involved in non-serious relationships or “friends with benefits”.

You see, in January, I got involved in a relationship with a friend. At first, I thought this was just going to be a casual fling. It turned out to be way more than that, and he fell in love with me. I found out later that he wanted to propose to me. The relationship I had with him fell apart after a few months, and he tried to kill himself.

When you watch your best friend/now-ex-boyfriend lying on the floor, completely drugged out of his mind, angry, scared, and trying to kill himself, things change. For me, that day was a turning point. I may have not even known it then, but I’ll never forget calling the police, trying to get him to stop, anything… so that he would still be alive to see the next day. So, whenever I find someone now to whom I’m attracted, I remember that scene, with my best friend lying there on the floor, with me pouring alcohol down the drain and him yelling “Don’t touch me!” I’ll remember calling his mother and having to explain the whole situation to her while she was crying and yelling on the other end of the phone. Above all, I’ll always remember the look of mixed hatred, fear, depression, loneliness, and love in his eyes that day, and it will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I know that that relationship almost killed my best friend. I know that it almost killed other people, and maybe even some innocent bystanders. And although I know that he had problems before we dated, I now have to live with the fact that I helped him get to that point. Although he has forgiven me, and we are regaining a lost friendship, I am still haunted by it. For 3 months I did not know whether he was alive or dead. I did not want to know. I knew that I couldn’t live with myself if he was dead.

That’s why I never want to be in a casual sex/kissing/whatever relationship again. It’s just not worth the pain. And for all of you out there, who, like my friend, say “That isn’t going to happen to me,” well, perhaps not. But whenever you get someone’s heart involved, you leave the door open for heartache. Sometimes, it’s best to just leave that door closed.

I know the people involved in this story are reading this blog. To my friend/ex-bf described above, don’t feel bad about me having to go through this; just know that it needed to be said, and I will be okay. To my friend I wrote that email to today, I just want you to know that the reason I said that I couldn’t respect you for that, even though it hurt you, was because I care about you deeply, and I never want anyone to have to go through what I went through earlier this year. Even if you say it’s casual, and she agrees, you never know whose heart is going to get mixed up in it and who will get hurt. It’s not worth the risk to leave that door open.