Secwepemc L.I.F.E. Newsletter Issue 11

Faith Over Fear

By Julie John

Fear is a bugger! It creeps in all of the time, and it can transform into a huge mountain if you allow fear to take control.

When I first started this newsletter, it came to me as a thought, an idea! I love supporting Indigenous entrepreneurship, I love sharing information, resources, and promoting Indigenous businesses. I just finished reading a book called Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love), and she talked about how ideas that specifically come to you are meant for you to carry out. If you don’t follow these ideas, they move on to someone else. This concept made a lot of sense to me. Right after I read this book, I had this thought/idea that came to me, so naturally I thought I was being put to the test! I thought of creating a free online newsletter to promote, support, encourage, and share information/resources for Indigenous entrepreneurship within the Secwepemc Nation and beyond! I acted immediately on this idea, and put it out there! After the first article, I thought, “what the heck am I doing?” lol, I had no idea/experience running a free online newsletter, let alone gathering content etc. So I hired people to help me out. This is where Lisa Orton comes into the picture, I hired Lisa to help me with the layout of the newsletter, she edits, she gathers content, and she lays everything out and is quite creative and marvelous.lays everything out and is quite creative and marvelous.

She also conducts interviews and shares stories, events in the newsletter. This brought a lot of ease, and thinking ok, we are doing this, and it will be ok, after my panic and self-doubt of course! As this free e-newsletter is coming up to its one year, I kept mentioning I’d start writing content/articles. And as great as Lisa is, she kept asking me, “When will you submit, what will you write, can you write something for next article”. So, I started writing, which was an ok process, I sent to Lisa to help edit, and make sure it was all good to go. Once the newsletter came out that month, I started to panic and get fearful again. I was fearful of being judged, of being not good enough, of the worst. I was literally so scared and was frozen in fear. I thought what’s the worst that can happen?? I get a bad review, but I will learn from this experience and better myself. We did get some feedback, and it was very positive and supportive, HUGE RELIEF!! I allowed fear to stop me from writing and sharing. How I allowed fear to control me, instead of having faith it will all work out, and if it doesn’t I will learn!

Julie John