I doubt almost every post before I publish it. Am I good enough to be saying any of this? Who am I to write about boundaries, or burnout, or kindness, as though I’ve got it figured out? What will people think — too preachy, too soft, a bit of a know-it-all dressed up as gentle advice?
That doubt doesn’t get smaller the longer I do this. It just gets slightly more familiar.
Where Mine Actually Comes From
I grew up Dutch, in a generation where “wat zullen de buren denken” — what will the neighbours think — sat somewhere in the back of nearly every woman’s mind, including my mother’s. There’s a phrase that captures the whole culture around it almost too well: doe maar normaal, dan ben je al gek genoeg — roughly, “just act normal, that’s already strange enough.” It tells you not to act better than anyone else, not to show off, not to be extravagant or different in any way that draws attention.
I absorbed that completely, without ever being told to directly. Don’t stand out. Don’t step on anyone’s toes. Don’t be the one who seems to think she’s special. Combine that with being a genuinely sensitive child in a household that didn’t really know what to do with sensitivity — my parents weren’t unkind about it, they simply had no real framework for it — and I grew up with a near-constant hum of doubt about whether the way I felt things, and the things I wanted to say, were too much. Too different. Too likely to make someone think I’d gotten above myself.
That hum didn’t go away when I became an adult. It just found new things to attach itself to. These days, it’s mostly this blog.
Why This Voice Shows Up for So Many of Us
I don’t think this voice is unique to me, or even particularly Dutch, though the specific phrasing of mine clearly is. A lot of us were raised with some version of the same instruction — don’t outshine anyone, don’t claim more space than you’ve earned, wait until you’re certain before you say anything out loud. For some people that’s cultural, the way mine is. For others it’s a particular parent, a particular classroom, a particular moment where being noticed went badly and the lesson stuck.
Whatever the source, the voice tends to show up in the same shape later in life: right before you do something slightly visible. Sharing an opinion. Asking for something you actually want. Putting your name on a piece of writing, or a piece of work, where people might actually disagree with you. The voice rarely waits until after, when it could point to an actual mistake. It shows up beforehand, doing its job in advance, trying to talk you out of being seen at all.
That timing is the giveaway, if you look closely. Real feedback comes after something happens, in response to something real. This voice arrives before anything has happened, which means it isn’t actually responding to anything you’ve done. It’s just an old rule, firing on schedule, regardless of whether there’s anything to actually object to this time.
Does This Look Different Now?
I think about this sometimes when I compare generations — millennials and Gen Z seem so much more confident than mine was at the same age, more willing to say what they want out loud, to disagree publicly, to post an opinion without the visible flinch I’d have had at twenty-five.
I genuinely don’t know if that confidence goes all the way down, though, or if it’s a different kind of mask than mine was. Some of what we see now looks less like an absence of doubt and more like generations that have been given more permission to voice things despite the doubt, rather than ones that don’t feel it at all. From what I understand, younger generations report just as much anxiety and self-doubt privately, sometimes more, even while presenting more boldly in public than mine ever did. The performance of confidence and the actual feeling of it aren’t necessarily the same thing, whatever generation you happen to belong to.
I don’t think the doubt itself is going anywhere, in other words. I think what changes, generation to generation, is what we’re each taught to do with it — stay quiet and small, in my generation’s case, or post boldly and figure out the doubt privately later, in younger generations’ case. Different costume, possibly the same old voice underneath.
What Self-Compassion Actually Changes
Self-compassion doesn’t make the doubt disappear. I still feel it before nearly every post, including this one. What it changes is what I do with it once it shows up.
Instead of treating the doubt as proof I should stay quiet, I’ve started treating it more like weather — present, real, worth acknowledging, but not actually in charge of my decisions. I write the post anyway. I publish it anyway. The doubt comes along for the ride, sometimes loudly, and it doesn’t get the final say it used to have.
Speaking to myself the way I’d speak to a friend helps more than almost anything else. If a friend told me she was scared to share something true because she’d grown up being told not to stand out, I wouldn’t tell her she was right to stay quiet. I’d tell her that “doe maar normaal” was never actually a kindness, just a way an entire generation of women kept each other small without meaning any particular harm by it. I try to offer myself that same correction, even though it’s considerably harder to believe when it’s aimed inward.
Moving Forward Anyway
Confidence, for me, has never been the absence of this doubt. It’s publishing anyway, with the doubt still fully present, because I’ve decided it doesn’t get to be the deciding vote. Falling behind, not being enough, not measuring up — so much of this runs on the same old engine, the one built a long time ago out of not wanting to seem different.
I’m trying, slowly, to let myself be exactly as different as I actually am. Some days that’s easier than others. Most days, the doubt still shows up first. I’m just learning not to let it write the post for me.