Betting on yourself

On transitions, self-promotion and being your own big break

Radiant Being,

Before shenanigans, show announcements…

My tour of A Little Bit Much kicks off on September 20th on Bowen Island.

The 7:00 pm show is SOLD OUT (woot!)

I’ve added a 4:30 pm show → Get tickets

Tickets to either show get you access to our post-show DANCE PARTY with DJ Mayor McCheese, aka my husband (also the actual Mayor, which is never not funny). My brother will bartend. My mom and eldest son are taking tickets & selling merch. Friends abound! I’m so pumped!

Or come to the Vancouver show at the Cultch! Friday, Sept 26th → Get tickets (there’s a group rate for 6+)

NEW SHOWS ADDED! Vancouver Island, I’m coming for you!

Saturday, October 4th at the Waverly in Cumberland - Get tickets here.

Sunday, October 5th at the Metro in Victoria - Get tickets here.

Okay, now that it looks like I’ve got my shit together and am rocking things, let’s get into it…

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Betting on yourself. Going for it. Taking leaps.

Easy? Hard? Vomit-inducing?

Is it just me, middle-age, or is everyone starting sentences like they’re fever dream versions of a Maybelline commercial?

Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s perimenopause. Maybe it’s the state of the world. Maybe it’s my inner world. Maybe it’s ADHD. Maybe it’s parenting in structureless summer. Maybe it’s late-stage capitalism. Maybe it’s samskaras. Maybe it’s trauma. Maybe I spend too much time on my phone. Maybe it’s eclipse season.

Maybe it’s the dissolution of key parts of my identity and ego I didn’t expect to hurt so much on its way out.

Wow, what a difficult summer that was! Technically, summer’s not over, but I’m calling it. Wrapped, done. Bring on sweater weather, school routines and people on the internet having obnoxiously strong opinions about pumpkin spice.

I made some bets this year, am in the midst of the game and trying to keep my eye on the ball.

Betting on yourself. Let’s talk about it.

First, context for the newbies here (welcome!) And those who’ve been here a while but don’t track my every move and keep the whole history of my overshares top of mind (c’mon, get it together).

This past spring, I retired my coaching business to go all in on a new path.

Comedy.

Oh my god, I’m so embarrassed saying that. You guuuuyyyyys, what an impractical, delusional, not very grown-up thing to do for your mid-life crisis awakening. Why couldn’t I have just kept making steady money and bought a sports car, got facial injections and opened my marriage?

Because this is AWESOME. And excruciating.

Okay, okay, it’s not just comedy. It’s performing arts. It’s writing. It’s plundering the depths of my human experience to reach across to yours and weave art that moves something. In me. In you. In us. It’s creative pursuits that make me feel wildly alive, wildly HERE, wildly connected.

The pivot into this new territory is real. I am so done with Zoom. I want to be in real rooms with real people, on stages, having a banging time. My new website has a gazillion titles for who I am and what I do. Comedian remains the hardest to claim. But it’s what I want. My vulnerability and self-doubt right now are downright adorable. Please, pet my cute head. I’ve been in a state.

What we see a lot of “out there” (out there = on the internet) are people’s highlight reels. We know this. I’m more interested in reality-tending and sharing. But there’s also a standard in storytelling that goes like this:

Share from the scars, not the wound. Or share once the blood’s run clear. Gruesome metaphors aside, the point is this: Don’t trauma dump on your audience. We want to feel connected to you and moved by your story, not worried about you.

This is solid advice. We teach this in our local Speak the Spark storytelling workshops.

As audience members, it can freak us out to read or watch something more appropriate for a therapist’s office or a meltdown phone call with a bestie than public art. And as a creator or artist, it’s hard to have perspective while you’re “in something” and we usually need a minute to not just end up leaking all over the place.

I’m “in something”. I don’t have perspective on how it’ll shake out, but I do have perspective on what it’s like to be the goo between caterpillar and butterfly. I’ve spent enough time being the professional holding people in their “somethings” that I think I can locate myself…live from the goo.. and I want to talk about it FROM THE INSIDE.

Maybe that’s part of the art. Dissolving a whole professional identity by ripping off its skin and asking, what’s in here when I’m not that? Then showing you around.

But wait, there’s more. In addition to this work dissolution, our family rhythms and roles are in total upheaval. For many years, Andrew joked and threatened to run for Mayor, while I joked and threatened to quit coaching for stand-up. 3 years ago, Andrew actually did run for mayor and got elected, so obviously, I had to turn my joke-threat into a life’s path. My beloved has taken one for the team and taken on additional work. We have transition buffer and now I have lots of pink jobs.

We’ve never been this squarely in traditional gender roles before and I AM NOT A DOMESTIC GODDESS. Holy crap, I get a giant fail in Tradwifing. I miss sharing that mental load with him, and you can pry these blue jobs out of my dead, cold hands, apparently. I really like to work.

We also decided to move our son to a homeschool hybrid. You know who is excellent at home learning and homework and all that stuff? NOT ME. But I’m rising to the occasion. I am goo.

Here’s our kid’s official first day of school pic:

pic of my child hiding his face from the camera. No cute sign or outfits like all the other pics on social media.

Here’s what I came to talk about: Betting on ourselves.

I’m a big proponent of following passions, whispers, creative nudges. My whole coaching career was helping people grow, change and develop in the ways they needed to pursue and meet their callings.

That’s what I’m doing, I am betting on myself and my art BIG TIME, and it’s bloody uncomfortable. I am self-producing and self-funding a Canadian tour of my show, and it’s a lot of work, a lot of money and a lot of risk (I recoup that money if I sell out shows). I’ve submitted for an arts grant, and if you’re a witch, wizard, magician or have a direct line to God, please pray for me.

Now might be a good time to invite you to upgrade your subscription if you’d like to support my creative work. It would mean a lot.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me and this! Through subscriptions, coming to and sharing about my show, sharing this publication, or listening to my meltdown voicememos. If someone could come over and take care of this laundry sitch, that’d be boss. Mom, I know you read this, where are you?

Have I mentioned that my mom and younger son are coming on the tour with me? We’re not in a tour bus or anything. We’ll come, we’ll go, we’ll homeschool on the road (hahahhahahahaha).

Here’s a list of things I notice about betting on myself, art and creative pursuits while being barf-scared goo…

1. I closed down my previous work to go all in. I trusted I’d take a lot of my skills and capacities with me and I have. But I underestimated how naked, raw and untethered I’d feel.

2. The hardest part is NOT taking old work patterns with me into this new venture. The amount of support, inner work, healing and mental, emotional and spiritual fortitude that’s taking is staggering. It also feels correct and like I’m pulling up old foundation and laying anew.

3. I have a clear seeing that this is mine to do. I don’t know why or where it will lead, but I trust it. I’d say I don’t know if “it’ll work,” but the very fact that I’m going for it the way I am, it’s already working. I’m being true. The deeper I trust that seeing, the stronger my faith and my confidence.

4. Whatever the F- is happening with my hormones is the next circle of hell. I wake up repeatedly like a newborn ready to nurse, but I’m nursing heart palpitations and panic surges. WHAT!? No matter what was going on in my life, I’ve usually been a pretty good sleeper. To all the people who struggle with sleep…how do you go on?!

5. What I’m pursuing and the way in which I’m pursuing it makes me feel wildly powerful and really, really proud of myself. Also, it’s a spin cycle of panic, confidence, doubt, clarity, thrashing, delight, joy, fear and eros.

6. Doing this is so embarrassing. I have to work to get over myself all day, every day. I’ve had to market my work for decades, and I’ve built a lot of skill, but this is a whole new beast, making art from my insides and then moving it through the busy, noisy streets, oy. I’m choosing it and I am goo.

7. The more I choose myself and exactly what I want and edit out the rest, the more support and encouragement I get from others. This experience challenges my cultural conditioning, especially as a woman, that tells me my worth and value are in serving and prioritizing others.

8. My habit of making my work and expression about helping other people get results has been the hardest to shake. Who am I and what is my work for if not that? It’s a new orientation around expression and contribution and I have to be really intentional to not fall into old patterning.

9. The “up to me” part of this is wild. Nobody is waiting for me to deliver something. I don’t have client or student deadlines to rise and shine for. It’s disorienting. The fear makes me want to move quickly and urgently, but that’s disastrous.

10. Synchronistic and wild opportunities show up in totally unplannable moments when I am deeply attuned, aligned and free of habituated pressure and control patterns. Magic is fucking real. Meditation, ritual and ceremony are business strategies.

Anyone out there in goo right now? What’s it like for you?

With Love,
Chela

PS - I’m looking to hire someone to run ads for us. If you do this professionally or work with someone you love and trust, please reach out to support@cheladavison.com with your reco! Thank you!

PPS - Speaking of being goo. My friend Simon Goland is running a program about navigating transitions. It starts later this month and they have a few spots left in the program. Here’s more info…

Life’s biggest shifts often feel like stepping into darkness—blindfolded, barefoot, and wildly uncharted. In Navigating Transitions, we learn to trust the pulse beneath the uncertainty. Over six soulful months, we’ll gather in community to:

– Embrace the unfolding in‑between

– Surrender what no longer fits

– Nurture fresh seeds of direction and purpose

This is your space to rest, soften, and re‑calibrate—not to fix, but to open up to what is wanting to unfold for you next. Navigating Transitions is a six-month transformative journey, fully virtual, conducted in small and intimate cohorts of others who – like you – are navigating diverse transitions in their lives. Your two program facilitators will bring their presence, love, guidance, and support to this process, together with our unequivocal commitment to your learning and growth through this process.

The program starts on September 25. All the program details are here.