F*ck Playing It Safe

This week’s episode of The Unstuck Edit podcast edition (over on You Tube / Spotify) ended up being a bit of a talking-to. To myself, mostly. But if you’re reading this, there’s a decent chance some of it might be for you too.

It started because I was doing something wildly sexy: updating my business plan.

Now, before your eyes glaze over, hear me out. My business plan isn’t one of those dry documents you create for a bank manager and then never look at again. It’s actually a really useful anchor. It helps me set out what I want, why I want it, and how I want to feel while I’m building it. It’s a bit compass, bit mirror, bit kick up the bum.

And as I was rereading the section on my why, I noticed that I’d listed out a number of the beliefs that underpin my work. The beliefs that shape how I show up, what I want to create, what I value, what lights me up, and what I want to help other people move through.

And I had one of those slightly uncomfortable moments where I realised: I don’t actually talk about these beliefs publicly all that much.

Not because they aren’t true or I’m being fake. But because I’ve probably been giving people a slightly diluted version of me.

A perfectly nice, helpful, useful version. A version that offers support and tools and encouragement. But maybe not always the fuller truth of why I care so deeply about the things I care about.

The helpful version of me versus the whole version of me

I think I’ve often stayed in the “here’s something that might help you” lane rather than the “here’s what I actually believe” lane.

And if I’m honest, that’s because sharing beliefs can feel vulnerable.

When you put your values and worldview out there, there’s always the risk that someone won’t get it. Won’t agree. Will misunderstand. Will judge. Sometimes the fear isn’t even strangers on the internet, it’s people who know you in real life. People who knew an older version of you. People who have a fixed idea of who you’re supposed to be.

So it can feel safer to stay polished. Helpful. Palatable. Less specific.

But I don’t think that’s where the good stuff lives.

What do you actually believe?

A lot of our beliefs aren’t consciously chosen. They’re inherited from parents, school, religion, culture, relationships, workplaces, friendship groups, the town you grew up in. The stories you absorbed when you were too young to question them. We pick things up, internalise them, repeat them and we build lives around them.

And sometimes we don’t stop to ask the very important question:

Do I actually believe this?

Or is this just something I’ve been handed?

That’s been a big part of my own work over the past several years, really since around 2017 when I first did Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map. That process was a catalyst for a lot of what came next. It got me thinking about my core desired feelings and how I wanted my life to feel, not just what it looked like from the outside.

Mine were:

• Bliss
• Passion
• Lioness

And honestly, those words still tell me a lot about myself.

I value loyalty deeply. I value passion, in other people as well as myself. I’m drawn to people who care about something, who have a fire in them, who show up with conviction and heart. I don’t need everyone to agree with me, but I do value people who know what they stand for.

That matters because our beliefs and values shape everything:

• how we make decisions
• what we tolerate
• what we settle for
• what we call “normal”
• who we trust
• where we spend our time
• what we think we’re worthy of receiving

If you feel stuck in your life, there’s a good chance your beliefs are somewhere in the room.

The shift that changed everything for me

One of the core beliefs that sits underneath my work is this:

If you change your mindset and your response to what’s happening in your life, you create the possibility for a different outcome.

That doesn’t mean toxic positivity. Or pretending awful things are lovely gifts in disguise. And it doesn’t mean I believe we cause every bad thing that happens to us.

It means I believe in agency, perspective. I believe in asking better questions.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019, I had a choice. Not over the diagnosis itself, obviously. Not over the biology of what was happening in my body. But over how I was going to relate to it, to deal with it and everything that it meant.

I could stay in why is this happening to me? Or I could experiment with a different question: What if this is happening for me?

Now, I want to be very clear here, because this matters. I am not saying I caused my cancer. I am not saying illness is a manifestation failure or some spiritual punishment or a lesson neatly gift-wrapped by the universe. Bodies are complex. Biology is complex. Life is complex.

What I am saying is that shifting from ‘to me’ to ‘for me’ changed the way I moved through it. It shifted me out of helplessness, fear, anger and into curiosity, opportunity, leadership.

It helped me ask:

• What is this showing me?
• What is no longer working in my life?
• What do I want to do with the fact that I’m still here?
• What would it look like to stop settling?

Cancer was a brutal wake-up call. A bitch slap, if we’re being honest. A reminder that life is precious and finite and not something I wanted to keep sleepwalking through.

I often talk about the idea of the B+ life. The life that’s… fine. Good, even. Comfortable enough. Tolerable. Respectable. A life that looks perfectly acceptable on paper but doesn’t feel like your full life when you’re alone with yourself.

I had a B+ life.

Not a terrible life. Not a tragic life. Just a life that wasn’t the truest expression of me.

And after cancer, I couldn’t unknow that.

The danger of only doing the outer work

This is also why I’ve always found myself dancing around the edges of style work, confidence work, embodiment work, mindset work, Human Design, ritual, ceremony, all of it. Because in my mind, they all belong in the same ecosystem.

I’m a stylist, yes. And I’m a bloody good one, actually.

I can see people. I can help them find what works. I can help them understand their shape, their energy, their presence, their style.

But I’ve never wanted to stop at the outer layer.

Because if you change the clothes without changing the relationship you have with yourself, there’s a ceiling. You might feel better for a while, and that matters, but if the inner beliefs are still whispering that you’re too much, not enough, too old, too broken, too visible, too risky, too selfish, too late… then the confidence won’t fully land.

The outer work can support the inner work beautifully.

But it can’t replace it.

That’s why I care so much about the deeper stuff.

The part where I tell on myself

Here’s one of the more revealing things I realised while talking about all of this:

In my business plan, I describe myself as a ceremonialist.

But on my website, I mostly call myself a celebrant.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with the word celebrant. It’s a useful word. A familiar word. A word people understand. But if I’m being truthful, ceremonialist is the word that lights me up. It’s the one that feels truest to the work I do and the energy I bring. It holds the ritual, the reverence, the meaning-making, the transition, the transformation.

So why haven’t I owned it more publicly? Because, quite simply, it feels safer to use the more recognisable label. And there it is again: playing small in the name of being understandable. Which is why this whole episode ended up becoming a bit of a rallying cry to myself.

Fuck playing it safe.

Not in a reckless, consequences-don’t-matter kind of way.

But in a stop-dimming-yourself-to-be-digestible kind of way.

In a stop-editing-the-truth-of-who-you-are-before-anyone’s-even-asked-you-to kind of way.

Maybe this is your invitation too

If you’re in a season where you feel stuck, flat, restless, or quietly dissatisfied, I want to offer you a few questions to ask yourself. Not because I have all the answers. But because I think these are good places to begin:

• What do I actually believe?
• Which of my values are truly mine, and which ones have been inherited?
• Where am I living a B+ life because it feels safer than risking the A+ one?
• What am I making myself smaller for?
• What would change if I trusted my own voice a little more?
• What if this thing I’m resisting contains an invitation?

You do not need to have it all figured out to begin. You do not need to become a brand new person overnight. You do not need to be fearless.

But I do think there’s power in telling the truth, in naming what matters and paying attention to what your life, your body and your intuition are trying to tell you.
In letting your values become a compass instead of a nice idea.

And if you need someone to help you sort through the tangle, to listen, to reflect things back, to help you move from stuck to clearer, truer, braver, more you… you know where I am.

I’m still figuring parts of this out too.
Still unlearning.
Still practising.
Still catching myself in the act of trying to be more palatable than necessary.

But this week, at least, I’m choosing honesty over dilution.

And that feels like a decent place to begin.

If this resonated, I’d love to know: what’s one belief or value you’re being invited to look at right now?

Until the next time pals, stay in the light.

Gx