Hey friend,
My first pottery bowl looked like an ashtray.
Not an endearing, Pinterest-worthy, “I made this with my hands” kind of ashtray. I decided to run with it, added a few more floppy pinched edges, and painted it like an oyster shell. It was not the class assignment, and even reclaimed, it was still a lopsided, structurally questionable object that no surface in a "normal" home would display with pride.
I do. Along with my genuinely pathetic vase and somewhat lopsided baking dish. Not so much because I think I'm the next Picasso (or insert other famous ceramic artist here). But because what I discovered about myself...and joy...and adventure in the process.
Here’s the thing about that pottery class — and I talk about this in the new Joyful Rebel episode this week — I almost didn’t sign up. And even after my husband and I did, I debated showing up. Not because my schedule was packed. But because my nervous system immediately registered the very high chance I was going to be terrible at it.
And an even higher chance my husband was going to be great.
(He was. Infuriatingly so.)
But I went anyway. Week after week. Making bad bowls. A slightly less bad vase (until you remember it, too, was supposed to be a bowl). Making one baking dish I actually used for Thanksgiving that year and felt genuinely proud of in a way that surprised me.
And somewhere in those weeks of showing up before I was good, or even mediocre, something quietly unlocked.
I’d been waiting to be seen until I was ready. And I’d been doing it my whole life.
Not just in pottery. In everything. The project I wouldn’t show anyone until it was perfect. The opinion I wouldn’t voice until I could defend it flawlessly. The version of myself I kept private until she was polished enough for public.
That’s what I’ve started calling Good Girl Ghosting™ — the ways we make ourselves invisible even in our own becoming. The waiting. The withholding. The I’ll participate when I’m ready.
The pottery class taught me something I keep coming back to:
“You don’t get confident and then become visible. You build confidence by surviving visibility.”
The win was never the bowl.
The win was showing up before I was good.
If you’re new here and wondering where your own waiting-to-be-ready pattern shows up — I made something for exactly that. It’s a free guide called 5 Moments You’re Abandoning Yourself (Without Realizing It) and it’ll name the pattern faster than you’re expecting.
This Week's Rebel Minute
Stop Delaying Adventure
Joy isn't reserved for people who are already good at something.
There is so much joy in the process. In the discovery. In surprising yourself. In taking chances on something without knowing how it'll go. Sometimes you rock it — and that's amazing. Sometimes you're terrible at it — and that's called being human. But all of it? That's adventure.
So here's the question worth sitting with this week: What adventure have you been denying yourself by waiting until you feel worthy of it?
Three questions to take with you:
- Where have you been waiting to be good before letting yourself be seen?
- What would your embodied self do next — not your shrinking self, not your performing self, but the one who trusts she can survive imperfection?
- And what is one pinkie-toe step you could take this week, just for the joy of becoming?
Your Permission Slips This Week
You don't need mastery to participate in your own life.
You're allowed to be bad at things and still love them.
You're allowed to learn publicly.
You're allowed to be a beginner.
You're allowed to be human.
Joy doesn't require excellence. Only presence.
Before women become wildly, dangerously visible — they often practice rebellion privately. In pottery classes. In the mirror. In brave little posts. In saying the true thing out loud for the first time.
So this week: try the thing. Make the ugly bowl. Take the pinkie-toe step.
Because confidence rarely arrives first.
But courage?
Courage often starts the moment you stop waiting to be perfect.
🎧 This Week on The Joyful Rebel Podcast
This week’s episode is called The Ugly Bowl: Why You Keep Waiting To Be Good Before You Let Yourself Be Seen. It’s the one I wish someone had handed me twenty years ago.
→ Listen Here
→ Watch on YouTube, The Real Reason You Hide Until You're Perfect, Here
On The Petal & The Plot
Read the essay version of this week's episode over at Substack.
Paid subscribers get the full pattern dissection, pinkie-toe practice suggestions, and journal prompt for that go deeper for those ready to stop ghosting themselves.
Because the essay is the story. The paid tier is the excavation.
→ Read The Ugly Bowl on Substack
Favorite Find This Week
In the 90s, I was an Old Navy, Gap, Express, and Rue 21 girl. They were at the mall, one of my favorite places to be when I was a teenager. The prices were good, especially when you caught a sale. And the clothes were flattering on my pre-pregnancy body.
After college, marriage, short career, and childbirth, I tried on all types of styles, trying to belong to various groups...fit in at mom events...bible studies...date nights. My closet became an eclectic mix of every one of those vibes—and absolutely none of it felt like me.
Problem was, I didn't know what feeling like me felt like. What I really liked. The fabrics, the colors, the styles, the stores. Discovering exactly that has been one of the most fun aspects of my midlife reclamation, and moving to sunny (and getting hotter) Phoenix has extended that fun.
Last week, I got a text that Old Navy was having a big sale on summer dresses. I'm not sure how I ended up on their text chain—probably after I scooped up some Christmas PJs for my girls one year—but I decided to take a looksie. I ended up buying 6 dresses and two tanks for, like, ridiculously cheap, which immediately made me think I'd probably end up returning half due to poor fit, cheap fabric, or some other ick.
I literally just tried them all on...and I'm in LOVE! I feel like a pretty princess in every single one, and they not only look to be very well made, but I'm so excited to brave the heat in them this summer.
So, no, I'm not a paid affiliate, but at the time of writing this email, the sale is still going on, so if you, too, are looking to beat the heat, reconnect with your younger self (any fellow '90s teens in the house?), my favorite find this week is summer dresses that make me want to twirl.
And if you have any favorite summer gear you're loving, I would be stoked to hear about it! Reply to this message with the goodness :)
