Brave Expression & Creative Risk

On Saying the Inside Part out Loud

Two things coming up…

I’ve got shows in Gibsons and Powell River, BC this month. Details here.

I’m opening a new community space for people who want to do brave things (amongst other cool happenings). Details, reg, timing, etc. will be shared with folks on the interest list. Get in on it here.

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One of the ways I enjoy knowing myself is through the lens of others. I don’t mean I let others define me, or that I’m looking to be told who I am. But paying attention to how others experience me tells me things I may not be aware of—the core me-ness they experience as “so Chela,” the surface notes that seem to reflect a season or stage I’m passing through, and how the ways I show up impact them.

I tuck these insights away, like little nuts in my cheeks (that was supposed to be a chipmunk reference, but feel free to interpret it as you like). The right kind of feedback can be deeply connecting, orienting and courage-building.

When we don’t lose ourselves in others, but relate in ways that are open, curious, intimate, and honest—our us-ness, your you-ness, my me-ness—can grow and evolve.

2025 was a year of risk. Of trusting my instincts and betting on myself with a kind of faith that’s been stretchy and edgy. Terrifying. Unreasonable. Risk-taking that requires a depth of self-trust that decades of lived experience can either erode or deepen, depending on how fiercely intentional we are about our sense-making.

Many of these risks were vocational and public, and I’ve shared about them while taking them. Nothing new there. I hospiced and then closed my 15-year coaching career, along with my most reliable revenue streams. I launched myself into a new medium, a new craft, and a new work identity without a clear business model or strategy—without full clarity on what this is or where it’s headed.

I released myself into it with a kind of abandon I’ve never mustered before, at least not with so much to lose. There’s been an eerie certainty to it—one I can feel, like really feel—that I know what’s meant for me. My job is not to try to make something happen, so much as it is to intuit and remove obstructions to what’s unfolding.

I launched and produced a show tour with zero experience. It’s been rolling out in ways that are both magical and gruelling. I’m toggling between following that momentum and wrestling adjacent creative projects into form. There’s a business model here, certainly, within the marble of my most desirous impulses and artistic longings, that I’m chipping away at.

When people first started telling me my show was “brave”, I didn’t quite know how to take it. I was like, Wait—should I not be saying these things? What’s so brave about what I’m saying?

And then, duh. I realized that, once again, I was saying the inside part out loud—and doing it quite provocatively—and that a lot of people, for myriad reasons, do not.

It reminded me of a moment in high school when my friends were jokingly commiserating about how I shouldn’t be allowed to talk to their parents because of what I might say. I was genuinely confused. What are you talking about? What am I saying that you’re not supposed to say in front of parents?

They were like, Uh… how about the time you told my mom you lost your virginity when she asked what you did last weekend? Or when you told my dad you got a taste of interconnected oneness on a mushroom trip?

And I was like, FIRST OF ALL, I thought your parents were cool. Secondly, your dad was clearly stoned, and we were talking about transcendental meditation as a doorway to state experiences, so that felt like fair terrain. But fine. I’ll try to be normal. I’ll lie about what we’re up to or whatever.

What others experience as bravery has often felt to me like the inevitability of authenticity. Expressing something because not expressing it would cost me more. Like saying the thing because it’s already alive in me—and it wants to connect to what’s alive in others, in our shared field. Withholding feels like a kind of self-betrayal, where the thing wriggles and rots inside.

This is very different than just blurting things out. I’m talking about intentional self-expression that feels risky.

But the most courageous things I did in 2025 weren’t public at all.

They didn’t happen on stage or online or in bold vocational moves. They happened quietly, privately, relationally. They happened in places where bravery didn’t just look like being seen— but like risking being unwanted or getting it wrong. ew barf, ugh.

That’s not where I’m going yet in this piece. But it is where this inquiry is leading me.

There are potent connections between what courage looks and feels like ‘out there’ in public spheres, what it looks and feels like close in, and what can be cultivated in either to grow a sense of belonging and courage in both.

I’m beginning a longer exploration into brave self-expression—where it flows freely, where it breaks down, and what it actually costs us to live more truthfully. Or not.

What does it take to follow the things that feel true before they feel palatable? To pursue work and ways of relating that are alive even when impractical or risky. Part of that exploration will be shared here in writing. Part of it will be explored more dynamically and relationally.

I’m pretty intimate with what stops my expression. The contexts that lead to freeze or fawning.

What about you? Where in your life does expression feel natural, almost inevitable?
And where do you find yourself holding back?

While I am very comfortable saying some things, these public, vocational risks don’t just look brave from the outside—they feel brave on the inside. The Backstage Pass is where I keep going, and where others who feel called to their own unreasonable, creative, or half-formed longings can borrow that bravery and grow relationships that support doing the same.

It’s a space where I let myself be seen in the act of choosing, building, risking, and making—vocationally and creatively—in real time. Not after it’s successful. Not once it’s tidy, and I can sell you my “proven framework”. Yawn. But while it’s uncertain, stretching me, asking me to trust my instincts and move without a model. I used to get paid well to apply these skills to other people’s businesses and bodies of work. This is where you can witness my thinking and approach (and how insufferable I am when I’m thrashing) while I build something from the ground up that centres joy, play and creative aliveness.

If something in you has been brewing, or boiling, or waiting, or chomping—for permission, for company, or for the courage to move toward what feels alive but unformed, unreasonable or all your very adult and rational responsibilities get in the way—and you don’t want to walk that edge alone, you’re welcome to stay close as this work unfolds by joining the interest list.

I’m not doing a big launch-y launch. I’ll be opening it up as it comes into form because that’s the spirit of being backstage. Getting on the interest list gets you in the backdoor so to speak. Was that an inner circle invite or an anal joke? Yes.

K, before you go, I have some questions for you. Your answers will help me shape a series on courageous self-expression, and with all the coo-coo-bananas stuff going on in the world, this is a skill worth building. For ourselves and to grow trusting and resilient communities.

If you’ll lend me your perspective (comment on this post or reply to the email!) I’ll make something to incorporate your unique challenges and needs. I’ve numbered them. Answer whichever ones you feel moved to. And thank you!

1. What feels riskier to you: saying the thing publicly, or naming your experience with someone you care about? Why?

2. What do you edit, soften, or swallow—creatively or relationally—and why do you think that is? What’s being protected or maintained?

3. Where in your life do you feel the pull to express or pursue something more fully, but you haven’t yet? What do you believe you need in order to do that?

4. What’s something that feels deeply true to you but too risky to express? What’s the perceived consequence you’re resisting or afraid of?
   

As always, thanks for being here and gracing me with your attention. I’m grateful.

PS - I would like to acknowledge that there are a lot of em dashes in this here missive. I wrote it. Not AI. Annoying that that needs to be said, but, as you probably know, the robots have been stealing our em dashes.