I woke up this morning from a total anxiety dream.  I was back in the cheese shop I worked at briefly after leaving my job in advertising sales.   This was on my mind because earlier in the day I had a conversation with my mom about career stuff and that cheese job came up as a sore spot – an episode that really shook my confidence and threw me for a loop.

I entered that role as cheesemonger at a brand new cheese shop with utter excitement!  It felt great saying “screw you” to the corporate world and I was proud to work the long hours for a measly hourly wage.  I was doing it for the love of cheese and the quest for cheese knowledge.  I was ecstatic!

Unfortunately, that feeling ended rather abruptly as soon as the shop had it’s grand opening.  I was suddenly serving a savvy clientele who I felt knew more about many of the products we sold than I did.  I had to learn so much so quickly and I was totally overwhelmed.  I was the only one who hadn’t worked at a cheese shop before and I did not feel encouraged or supported by my coworkers when I’d ask for help.  I felt like a nuisance.  I felt like I was doing a bad job and that I was constantly in the way.

That really felt like shit to me.  I wasn’t used to it.  I was used to being the go-to girl at work, the one others came to for help.  For two weeks I worked at that job and I’d come home crying to Adam as he rubbed my sore feet.  I wanted to learn, I wanted to help, I wanted to be an asset – but it wasn’t working out that way.  And each day I’d go back, I’d be a little more uptight and a little less sure of myself until all of a sudden I was this insecure miserable shrinking person I didn’t even recognize.  So I quit. And that also made me feel like shit.  I felt like I failed.

In my dream I was back in that cheese shop again and I was screwing everything up… all those feelings of insecurity and anxiety came flooding back.  But everything’s a learning experience right?  An experience like that could make me hold back.  It could keep me from taking risks, from going outside of my comfort zone out of a fear of failing again.  But since the cheese shop debacle, I’ve done a lot of things that scared the hell out of me and I’ve succeeded, and that’s where the focus needs to stay.  It’s the stumbling, falling, and then getting up, brushing myself off and going back for more that will make me grow into a braver, more badass person.

So I’m taking this disappointing experience and I’m letting myself off the hook.  But I’m going to hold on to it as a reminder that I will definitely fail at things in my life and that it won’t crush me permanently.  I will go on to push myself again and I will succeed and I will grow.

And I will continue to always love cheese.

Me - in France - loving cheese.