Learning to love my worm self
On feeling small, socially awkward and worried you don’t measure up
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A room full of powerful women has a particular energy to it. If you have ever been in one, you’ll know exactly what I mean. It’s an invisible crackling, lightning that jumps from fingertip to fingertip. They possess a distinctive centre of gravity that feels solid and earthed because they haven’t just survived many things, they have thrived despite it. Their gaze if you hold it, is steady.
I was in such a room last week, an event for women who work in journalism, and I was invited because (I think) someone thought I was one of these women. We were there to honour the veteran US-based journalist Christiane Amanpour, whose enormous legacy of work ranges from the frontlines of war to working as a UNESCO ambassador for journalist safety.
When I walked into that room, it was clear I hadn’t got the memo about the dress code. I turned up looking like a chandelier mis-interpreting the champagne reception and the five-star hotel location, while everyone else was in elevated business mode.
Me…in chandelier mode
Then, I realised I didn’t know many people, especially since the last time I occupied a senior position in a newsroom it was five or six years ago. But a lot of the people in that room knew each other. That then opened the lid to a chest of thoughts I hadn’t experienced in a while: why am I here? Do I belong? Was I invited by mistake? For anyone familiar with the process of social anxiety, the first thought hooks the second, and by the time you are onto the third thought, you start to feel as if you are standing in a room with no clothes on.
The remarkable speed in which this sequence of thoughts happened, astonished me. Particularly because ever since entering my forties, it takes a lot to unnerve me and make me question myself.
Then I realised: Ah, I know what this is. This is my worm self.
What the hell is a worm self?
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