The squiggle comes while reading Chantal’s email shout-out to Glennon Doyle Melton. Chantal Peirrat is the founder of Emerging Women, an international movement dedicated to liberating the power inherent in every woman.

“This woman is freaking amazing—authenticity, vulnerability, fierceness beyond measure, grit, grace … it's all there,” lauded Chantal. “I can't compare her to anybody, but think Brené Brown, Liz Gilbert, Esther Perel, Anne Lamott, and Oprah all in one! For reals, people—don’t miss this one.”

I know my discomfort has nothing to do with Glennon. In fact, after reading Chantal’s email, I immediately googled the Momastery blogger and fell in love with Glennon. “She’s a true soul sister,” I think to myself. “In her words, she has found her way to freeing the authentic self buried underneath her representative self.”

Nope.

My flinch isn’t about Glennon or Chantal.

It’s my own insecurity surfacing.

I’m afraid there might not be enough room for me — me and my authenticity, vulnerability, and fierceness. But more, for Selfistry.

A voice in my head launches into her litany: “You better hurry up. You’re gonna miss your chance. That could have been you that Chantal was raving about. You’re blowing it.”

I peer scornfully at the voice and release my defense: “As if there were a way to hurry up, or pull off the latest Ten Easy Steps to Overnight Success. As if going viral were easy to make happen. As if there were a stage — one stage — that, if I got onto it, would finally launch me into clear view and establish Selfistry’s legitimacy.

Ugh.

I take a long deep breath, shake my head, and call forth my hard-earned superpower: my ability to pause. I enter this hiatus to step back and witness what’s arising. My capacity to detach kicks in strongly.

Instead of reacting, I become curious.

Years of meditation serve me well at times like this. The Witness is now wired into my circuitry right alongside the relentless critical bitch.

I view the bitch’s reaction as the ingenious and honorable work of my reptilian brain. It’s suddenly hilarious to me that a reflex encoded millions of years ago for survival — a miraculous regulating force in the human organism — has somehow come to define survival as fame in the twenty-first century.

I chuckle.

If I don’t laugh, I would certainly cry.

On a bad day, here’s where my attention would go.

First stop, Judgement Square. In addition to the bitch calling me pathetic, Judgement Square is where her cronies spout their venom about everyone and everything: Glennon’s just feeding the mainstream dogma. She has no real depth. And Chantal's just as bad … a phony new-age self-help femininista.

Next stop, Pity Hill, where weepy voices incessantly wail: If only my mother wouldn’t have been so shut down, maybe I wouldn’t have a competition thing with other women. But it wouldn't matter anyway, because my story is not as interesting as theirs. Glennon is clearly smarter, prettier, and more worthy than I am.

Final destination, Righteous Resignation Corner, where every resident knows that a truly righteous person’s status is established by God alone. The voices here are stoic and disembodied: Your desire to be recognized is an insidious element of the unholiness of your wretched sinful soul.

Though my attention is tempted to slide down the well worn rabbit hole into my primal brain, I turn away from the familiar pathway and take a seat in my frontal lobe. Here I locate objective facts.

I’m perfectly safe.

There’s no threat to my physical life.

There’s no need to believe any of the chatter arising from the amygdala’s domain.

In fact, there’s no need to do anything right now but be precisely where and who I am. Breathing.

My forebrain confidently reminds me that a certain section of my nervous system is wired to survive — to compete for supremacy in a threatening predatory environment. “She’s merely doing her job,” my neocortex assures me. “She’s simply got some wires crossed is all.”

I soften my shoulders and lean back in my chair. I close my eyes. My heartbeat slows and my breathing normalizes. I can now become aware of what is present, other than the impulse to fight or flee.

Fluttering in my upper chest is a yearning.

When I notice it, my heart quickens again.

“For what do you long?” I ask.

The answer comes softly and confidently: “I wish to be me.”

Relocating this centering self is like waking from a dream. Too often we ambulate through life as confused and fearful dream characters. But this one feels like the dreamer. She feels like home.

Through her eyes, I took a moment to watch a video clip of Glennon on Youtube. I see her power, radiance, and authenticity. I see a sister claiming her voice, sharing her story, taking her place on the stage of life.

I inhale and ask myself, “Is there room for both of us?”

The question now seems silly.

Shameful.

Just a moment ago it felt like life and death.

I know I’m not the only one who acts out due to the programming of well established reptilian neural pathways. I also know I’m not the only one clumsily waking up from this dreadful habit. I imagine I might even be one of a whole slew of homo sapiens approaching the possibility of becoming human.

But it’s messy.

The Emerging Women movement helped pull me out of my embarrassingly competitive habit with other women by getting me high in a sea of hundreds of sisters shouting, “Yes! there is room for all of us!”

Not only is there enough, but there is an urgent call for each of us to stand and take our rightful place on the world stage. These are unprecedented times. Humanity needs our power and presence. In order to bring our voices forward, we must access the depth of our capacity to be fully “for” each other as women.

I settle into this knowing — though, admittedly, not without a bit more struggle.

I know the truest, best, most fulfilling life is not found on a strategically targeted stage “out there” somewhere. Still, the idea tempts me.

“Where you stand is your stage,” my centered self whispers to me.

How can I know this for sure?

“Because you’re here standing. Nobody else is in this place.”

I repeat to myself, “I am here. This is my place. I will move forward into the world from here.”

I say this mantra every day.

Living my own unique story has gotten easier. When I'm stressed, tired, or unmindful, my nervous system might flare, leaving me feeling vulnerable and exposed, unsure of my path or my future. At such times, I may want to lurch at another woman and try to knock her off her path. When this occurs, I have only one way through. We are in this together, she and I. So I pause. I own what’s happening inside of me. I feel and express my sorrow and shame, allowing my centered self to show up and be genuinely for the other woman rather than hiding the competitive one and pretending she doesn’t exist.

This is the way of sisterhood. Because we're each connected to Source as the author of our unique life, when we are centered in this place there's no stopping us. We are fully for one another.

Still, let’s be real. We’re works in progress. We’re not always rooted in this place of clarity. We’re more and more grounded there, but not always. What to do when we are not stationed in our deepest knowing is the crucial teaching of these times.

What do I do when I know what the “right” thing to do is, but my instinct is to do the exact opposite and the strength to do the right thing is simply not available?

I pause.

I stop to witness and identify which self is about to act. I breathe. I rest into my breath and access the Breath that is breathing me. I practice this maneuver over and over and over again without ever believing this process of centering will get easier or that I will never again get drawn out of my center—without ever teaching others that it should be any other way. This is the dance of becoming human. It's a journey. Not a fixed state.

As you continue to walk your path, remember: you are a beautiful work of art — an emerging human.

The world needs you to blossom.

And there’s plenty of room.