Silky: On Fear with Mica Montana

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 

2 Timothy 1:17 

I was actually talking to someone the other day and they were like “Oh yeah, thanks for one of the posts that you made,” and I was like “Yeah, thanks for saying that I appreciate the encouragement” and then I was saying what I was saying to you about sometimes feeling like there are enough of these Instagram wellness, therapy, therapeutic posts you know. There's enough of them so it often feels like “why do I need to do this?” And then he was like for him I'm the only person on his feed that post stuff like that. For him I am his window into that world.

- Mica 

Today’s post is about fear: feeling it, being paralysed by it and overcoming it in our careers and/or creative practices. I wanted to write this post because of all the times that I stopped myself from making Silk + Water: The Podcast with thoughts like “Really Yasmina, another podcast? Nobody cares!” before finally deciding to officialise it. There was so much safety in my little corner of the internet, when this was just a blog that few people in my network knew about and engaged with, where I didn’t feel as much pressure to have a readership. Now that I've made it into a podcast, I kind of feel like I have to justify having it with an astronomical number of listeners and readers… you know? And the fear is not just limited to that. It comes in as I try to pitch and write more to build a portfolio for myself and really try to establish myself in the media world.

And the fear is not just limited to the podcast. It comes in as I try to write more and build a portfolio for myself. I had been having a conversation with a friend about it a couple of weeks ago. She is actually my writing accountability partner and that has sometimes meant that we have had to discuss how best to encourage each other when we’re producing content for our own platforms or for commissions when fear or any other type of discouragement gets the best of us. So, I decided to invite her onto the podcast to talk it out with me! 

Mica (that's Mee-sha) Montana Gray is a Poet, Workshop Facilitator and aspiring Clinical Psychologist based in Birmingham. She currently works part time as an Applied Research Psychologist and has previously worked as an Assistant Psychologist in children's mental health services. She has completed an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Psychology and a Masters in Cognitive Neuroscience in 2017.

While completing her undergraduate degree, she had an experience of depression and drug induced psychosis which resulted in a hospital admission. This experience birthed the poetry collection 'when daisies talk' which was self-published in March 2019.

Is fear getting in the way of you walking in your purpose? Well, I hope you find a little bit of encouragement from here today.

In conversation with Mica Montana

Hi Mica, first and foremost thank you for joining me on this, and if you just kind of like introduce yourself let us know who you are and what you do. 

My name is Mica. I work part time as a research psychologist helping to develop student mental health services and the other half of my time is spent a different kind of well-being workshops and doing writing projects so then sends me that's what I do at the moment.

And your writing projects what are those about usually? 

Generally, I think whatever I'm kind of experiencing in my life or exploring different concepts and ideas usually around mental health and relationships. Yeah, I would say those are the general themes. 

And when did you start sharing your work?

I think I started sharing intentionally a couple of years ago in university, and it started with sharing poetry, going to like open mics and poetry events and sharing it as spoken word, I think. And then it kind of transitioned to sharing online as well.

I kind of like remember sharing poetry for the first time on a stage also in uni, like second year of uni or something, and that was just kind of like a terrifying experience. And it’s still terrifying but for some reason I keep putting myself through it. I don't know what your experience of like performance versus page and sharing online like what's the difference there? Is there fear? Do you experience fear, actually? I can’t just assume that you do. 

I mean, every single time to be honest. I think that I have mastered the art of being comfortably nervous. That's how I kind of define it, because every time I'm absolutely shook. Even though I've done it like a good few times now, there's always like this kind of fear, and I'm just like, “OK, this is what I'm experiencing right now. I'm just gonna have to go with it.” 

I just tend to, I don't know, use it in some way or like perform with it, and then usually afterwards people are like “Oh my gosh, you were so good and so confident” and I’m like “No, I was shaking the entire time but somehow my voice is steady and somehow it works out. But I'm definitely nervous the whole time.” 

I used to have like a poetry mentor back in uni days and something that he told me was “if you stop being nervous it means that it's not a passion anymore and it's not challenging you anymore” and so I spend time reminding myself before any performance like it's supposed to be scary if it's not scary then like there's something wrong. 

That's true, it kind of means like you care about it. You care about what you’re sharing which is a lesson that I learned once in an interview actually where I had a panic attack. I didn't think that I was gonna get the role but afterwards they were like “yeah, we're going to give it to you because it just means that you care a lot and that's what we want. So, here you go, welcome,” and I was like woah, okay. 

That's really scary though!

Yeah, it was, but I think that's how I got to kind of embrace the fear and anxiety of it and kind of just push through it. 

I'm kind of wondering, like, sometimes I listen to people's poems and they’re like very blatantly problematic poems. And in my head whenever I perform, I think one of my biggest concerns is like “am I scared because it's important to me? Or am I scared because I'm worried that the content is actually not appropriate, or is it not well researched, am I just talking out of my ass and offending people in the process? I think that was particularly for like sharing online work. I think the first time I got like my work commissioned I was like “Oh my God, who do I think I am? I don't know what I'm talking about and people are going to drag me.” So sometimes that distinction is not always clear for me.

I definitely feel that. I feel like I have this thing that's like I want the things that I – especially if it's like articles or narrative essays or prose or something – I want it to be nuanced because  I’m like “Aah! There are so many ways this could be potentially interpreted, there are so many ways that this could potentially go wrong. And I don't want it to be like I'm ignoring certain things or dismissing certain things as I try to get my point across. So, I feel like I am constantly trying to be as nuanced as possible while still trying to make the point that I want to make, if that makes sense. 

But it is difficult. I think that I navigate that mostly by just thinking about what the intention of the piece is, and I think this is probably why I tend to write mostly personal pieces because I feel like there's less room for me to go wrong, though it might kind of open it up to general concepts, I try to kind of keep myself as the root. I don't know how long I can do that for in terms of my writing and how it will develop but I think that's how I kind of navigate that at the moment. But, yeah, be as honest as you can really because that's all you can do. 

And I guess not being pressured to feel like you have to know it all or have to get it right all the time. I think that is another side of things. On the internet everyone wants you to be an expert of everything but at the end of the day we’re all like learning and growing. What you write at one point is not going to be representative of what you might write about the same topic a year later, because you know you’d have grown more. 

And also, I feel like in the process of writing the piece itself I am already learning. I guess that’s something that maybe I should keep in perspective in terms of managing that fear, I'm also learning as I write this so it might not be perfect but you know I've gotten something out of this and someone else might and it doesn't have to be everyone. 

Yeah, definitely.

Do you call yourself a writer?

I do now, it still feels a bit weird, but I try to embrace it because you know when you look at like advice for writers and stuff and they’re like “well, hey, if you write then you already writer!” and I’m like, “Am I? Are you sure? Okay…” So, I'm trying to embrace that a bit. 

What about author? Or maybe, I don't know actually, there's different types of writers and “writer” is like all-encompassing, and you can kind of run away from a lot of things when you call yourself a writer. But what about more specific things like poet or journalists or essayist or stuff like that. Do you identify with any of those?

It's difficult because I think I can write all of those things and I do write all of those things, but I don't want to like put myself into one specific form and then feel like I kind of have to stick to that. I think, yeah, like you said being a writer is more encompassing because I can be like a poet and essayist. 

And I think in my head, people that I see use the term writer most I feel are journalists, but I wouldn't, I don't know, if I would have thought of what a writer is before I don't think that I would have thought of a journalist if that makes sense. I think my idea of what a writer is has expanded as well, because now I would also like consider scriptwriters, whereas I don't think I would have done that before either. I think that I had kind of a narrow view of what a writer was, because I was kind of thinking of it as these specific things of you know you just write novels or essays.

Yeah, I don't think I considered scriptwriters you know.

It’s something I've been thinking about more often because I've been trying to engage in these writers communities and there’s a lot of scriptwriters there and I'm just like “Oh yeah, you guys. This is what writers do also, don’t they?” 

And also podcasts have writers! And I’m like “Oh, okay! It actually makes a lot of sense” but also I just kind of assumed that people just like got up and spoke and made a podcast. 

Yeah. You didn't think of it as like a writer’s career, let's say. It's quite interesting. Yeah, I think it just keeps it more open.

And what was the initial hesitation to call yourself a writer?

I guess it's just like not feeling like you've done enough to be considered a writer. And I don't know what the “doing enough” is. I feel it is just you know just being successful as a writer but even that is like what does that even mean?  But I guess like having different works published, having like social recognition of it, maybe something about having it as your main vacation. Like writing is what you do for a living and people pay you to do this, and you know, I feel like in my head that is what a writer is. And I don't feel like that’s what my life looks like, so I’m like “I’m not a writer” 

I hear that. “We're trying to be writers. That's what we're trying to do.” 

Trying, trying. It’s a very interesting world to navigate.

I feel like no one ever has the answer although there's like hella writers out here. There's like a bunch of resources and stuff and a lot of people will tell you that you don't have to get paid to be a writer and I get that, but also, I don't know… 

It's difficult. There is a lot of advice out there and it's kind of like, where do you even start, who do you actually listen to? And because peoples writing careers develop so differently as well, it’s just kind of like, what even is the route? 

One of my things with this whole “making it as a writer” thing, is that like a lot of it necessitates popularity on these social media platforms and things like that. Like the Twitters and stuff, and I don't think I want that… I see what a lot of people go through on these places and I’m really not interested in having someone in my messages. 

Yeah, as is in like, coming to talk to you about stuff you written?

Yeah… like if you're trying to be constructive that's perfectly fine and I'm very open to that, but a lot of people just end up going through a lot of nonsense because of the platforms that they have. And I’m really sensitive… I don’t want to go through that.

Definitely. And it’s so open like anybody can just come. I always see people talk about like their followers being like overfamiliar and things like that and just coming to just share. And I’m just like, yeah, I don't want that. 

But also, how we like kind of find a middle ground for that? Because to get more jobs the truth is that sometimes you just kind of like have to put yourself out there. And because your name is on things that will make you public, how do you find a middle ground between being public access and wanting your private life?

I think there's something about just finding out what kind of boundaries work for you. I think there is a level of engagement that you should have, but I guess it's just kind of deciding for yourself how you want to kind of facilitate that. So, like I know some people be like don't message me in my DMs about specific things, but you can email me. And then maybe like you could host a wider conversation about the topic, rather than having this kind of one-to-one dialogue with everybody if that works better for you. Or just finding the right mediums that work for you to facilitate engagement, I guess. 

How do you manage that?

I think, to be honest, because I'm not like super popular I can kind of manage the one-to-one conversations that I do have at the moment. So far, I've just kind of put in a day my week where “this is the day that I'm going to reply to things” rather than feeling like I have to respond to you immediately. I’m kind of like, okay, this is the space that I'm going to give for this kind of interaction with people. So, that's kind of how I'm doing it at the moment. 

I think that as I create more things, I might have to be a bit more creative with that.

I hear that, and I think it’s very similar for me as well. And sometimes messages kind of like sit there for a couple of days I feel bad but also, I don't have the capacity. 

I think that maybe some of these like – we have Clubhouse and all of these things; I think these could be potentially helpful platforms. So, like let's say if you wrote something and you wanted to engage with people about it, you can like write it and then afterwards join a discussion about it and then do it that way, and then just kind of keep it to that time and space, if you see what I mean. 

Yeah. Well Clubhouse does not exist in Guiné-Bissau*. I have tried over and over to have access to this app, and I just keep seeing the banter on Twitter and I have a lot of FOMO, but we move…

Hopefully they will expand. 

Hopefully… but also, I don't know that I would necessarily do that you know. I think like willingly putting myself in a group of people and talking about something… like I mess up a lot when I speak, which is why I write. Because then I can think about what I'm writing, but when I speak it's like my mouth is going too fast for my brain.

I understand. I feel I have that also. If you ask me something and I have to like verbally respond…if you let me write it, it will be so nice you know. It will be so good. It will be concise and eloquent and just beautiful. But, during the verbal processing, something happens… 

Do you ever have moments like when you pitch something that you're like “Oh my God. What am I going to do if they actually accept?” 

I don't think that I've had that. Is that something that you have? 

Yeah, a few times, I’m like “wait, who do I think I am that I think I can write this?” 

Yeah, I get that. I have that feeling of like “who do I think I am sending this?” And maybe that's something I still need to kind of work on because I think that is what kind of stops me from pitching things sometimes. 

And I also sometimes feel like, are people even interested in the things that I'm interested in? Is the thing that I want to write and read about something that other people are interested in? 

I hear that. And I think one of my initial things, like at the very beginning, I was like “well everyone has already said everything. So why do I need to write it?” 

Yeah… but they haven't said it how you would say it Yasmina! 

That’s what people keep telling me… I get that but I mean… if it’s saturated there's no need to say it any other way. 

I understand to be honest.

But I think I end up like determining – like per platform I search up if there's anything similar that's been done on there. And then, it’ll depend on like current events as well, I feel like at the end of the day there’s always new phenomena happening that need someone to talk about it. So, I don't have to talk about like – I don’t know, what’s something that's been overwritten? Not overwritten, but like, it feels like we have a lot of content on it.  

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of that. But I think also to kind of navigate that, I think about the people that follow me and I think about the fact that like there's a lot of things that I see and I'm like okay I don't have to say that because so many other people are saying it. But then I'm like the people that follow me are not necessarily seeing all the things I’m seeing because they're not in the same spaces, if you see what I mean.

So, it's like what, to me, is like over-saturated to them is not. Does that make sense? Because I'm like knee-deep in this world. I feel this way about a lot of like mental health stuff that I see online, so I’m like “I don’t need to say anything because everyone says this. Like, it's all over the place.” But then like, it's all over the place to me because this is the space that I live in, but it's not the space that other people live in. 

I think I agree with that. Sometimes though, because I write a lot about what I see on Twitter, the things that Black people are talking about. Well, not Black people as a whole like everywhere in the world, but like particularly the things that a lot of Black writers and organisers that I see on my timeline talk about, I end up writing about those things. But then I wonder, sometimes, does this need to have a whole article, or can it just exist as it is on Twitter where people have had the discourse? Does it need to be an article? 

I have like one more area of exploration. I was wondering, in terms of like starting new projects, are there things that kind of get in the way of that? And I'm asking this from a place of like with starting this podcast, in my head I'm like “there are already so many podcasts, there are already so many resources, so why should I do this?” kind of thing… and I am not convinced that I 100% believe that I should be doing this, but here I am still doing it. So, I wonder about like whenever you start a new project, what are the kinds of fears that speak to you? How do you silence them? Do you silence them? 

I think they’re probably similar fears that come up. Mostly it's just like “is anybody actually going to be interested in this? Does anybody even want this? Is anybody even gonna like it? Will people even get it?” I think those are the main fears that I have. 

And then to navigate them I guess I wouldn't say that I silence them. I would say that I respond. I respond to them, and I just think of it like if it was somebody else that was saying those things to me, what would I say to them? So, I think that a lot of those fears, I kind of look at maybe where they’re coming from and also the other perspectives to it, because you know people might not like it, but you know people might also like it, do you know what I mean? Like that is not the whole truth. People might not like it, but not everybody likes everything, you know what I mean? So that doesn't mean that there won't be people that do like it. Yeah, people probably won’t, but there are people that would like it as well.

I just kind of tend to respond and try to find the other perspective and be led by that rather than the fear, if that makes sense. 

Well, this brings me to another question which I promise is the last one. But I wonder how tied these fears are to being validated. So, we know that not everyone is going to vibe with it and some people will, and validation these days comes a lot from like the numbers that it does. So, how does that factor in? 

Yeah, I think that it's… when I start to think about the numbers I really have to think about what the intention is behind the project in the first place, because it's like “am I trying to do it for clout? Am I doing it for the numbers? Or am I doing it because you know this is the work that I feel like I genuinely have to do?” 

And I also remind myself that one person is as important and as valuable as like 20 people. So, even if just one person listens, you've served that person, do you know what I mean? And I just tend to think about it like that because one person who listens to your thing could be helped so much so much by it that it helps them to serve like 50 other people. So inadvertently, you’ve served those people as well by serving that one person, because it had fulfilled the purpose that it had in that person's life, if you see what I mean. So, I try to look at it like that. The people that will vibe with it, like how would it serve them and what purpose will it you know fulfil for them, and then just try to kind of create as authentically as I can from that kind of space. 

That’s a word. 

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I hope that this was been encouraging. Do share it with your loved ones who might need some encouragement too. 

Make sure you leave comments on the blog, voicenotes on the podcast, drop me an email or tweet me with the hashtag #SilkySessions if you have any thoughts about today’s post or if you just enjoyed it. And definitely make sure you follow Mica as she keeps overcoming her fears and blessing us with her knowledge and creativity. All her links will be below, and make sure you click through them, I promise you will be better for it! 

If there’s a particular topic that you would like me to tackle in how it pertains to my writing and/or podcasting, then drop me a message too so that this place can evolve from a dumping ground to a source.

Thank you for spending this time with me and see you soon! x

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*I got on Clubhouse literally a day before this post went live, lol. So, follow me (@yasmeeener) and Mica (@micamontana) on there.

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