Hello readers,
I hope your second to last month of the year started well. This is a month of wonderful colors I love, and cozy clothes, but the month has also greeted me with anxiety and tiredness. As I look at the world I see many signs of hope, and a terrifying number of events that make me think we are doomed as a species. The little things, like cooking and walking in nature, keep me grounded and relatively at ease.
Little things, like writing this, help. So many wonder why people write and share. If you are one of them, whether you write or not, I dare you not to subscribe to the idea that writing is an act of egomaniacs or self-centered people needing an outlet. Despite never believing that, I did not have my own explanation for years. The fact that egomaniacs and self-centered humans are represented in most categories you can think of does not help either!
Being a person who has always found writing a struggle, I know that it does not boost my ego, if anything it shows me where ignoring my ego can take me. The biggest obstacle when writing is my sense of nothingness and irrelevance. Whenever I do manage to write, and maybe even share, I know I have overcome that obstacle. The audience might be indifferent, but the main obstacle is behind me when I am on a stage.
Writing a story, a blog post, or a spoken word piece is risky business. Creating is by definition working on something new, and the process is messy. Anything from indifference to ridicule is waiting for you on the other side if you decide to share what you have put on a page.
My poet-crush (regular crush too) & role model, Shane Koyczan, states in a poem that I recommend (Pinned to the dish) “Risk is your endorsement of hope.” It is. It is so true. Sometimes when we are struggling and everything seems bleak, what we need is to endorse hope by doing something risky to keep dark thoughts at bay, or at least quiet them for a while. When my first instinct is to stay silent, small and compliant, getting on a stage is pure defiance, at the extreme opposite of the spectrum of actions to take. It differs greatly from what my ego tells me to do, to protect me from rejection, so radically in fact, that I literally feel like I am splitting in two at times.
Since I spent most of my life horrified at the idea of people noticing me for the “wrong” reasons, namely not being attractive or not being good enough, creating is hard for me, even here on this blog. The number of ideas spinning and elaborating in my head is at all times extremely high. Yet, there are only a handful of times in a year I feel sure I want to share with others. The fear of being judged by strangers and friends alike is still holding me back. Given that the only antidote to paralyzing fear is practice, here I am, I am practicing being visible and speaking my mind.
Every life has a few recurring themes and loneliness is one of mine. I rarely use that word and often feel physically uncomfortable when others speak about it. Writing has incomparable healing qualities for me because it allows me to be seen in a safe space I have selected, using my own words.
Johann Hari in “Lost Connections,” says that loneliness is not just about not having company; it is rather a state of not having the chance to share anything meaningful with the world. Being invited to parties is not the antidote to loneliness, being seen as an authentic version of yourself, whenever that is accessible to you, is.
To me, and I am sure, to many others, millions if not more, sharing stories is about choosing the spotlight to truly exist in a public space where we might otherwise feel invisible.
To me writing is about connection. That is the only thing I am seeking every single time I share a story in any form, on or off stage. Authentic words combined with showing up (which is essential, the very first step) create a chance for connection, because courage is contagious. At the end of the day, despite shame and social norms, we want to out ourselves and share our stories with others, because they matter. Many of us are not willing to be on that stage to tell the story, and that is absolutely fine. Any performer can tell you, there are a lot of people who will tell stories one on one, once they have listened to yours and related to it. As a performer you open the door, take the first step, and are often met with reciprocation of some sort. Connection fosters sharing and openness, hence it reduces feelings of loneliness and isolation.
Loneliness has been a major source of shame for me, and here I am, mentioning it again. Just as disgusting as a giant pimple or rash, I thought for years it would brand me for life, and pretty much guarantee my need to stay small and please others to compensate for my quirkiness. Writing is one of the tools to demolish the worldview I held when I had that belief.
Fortunately, I am a maverick! I am committed to writing. As Elizabeth Gilbert would say, this is my “crap sandwich.” Creating anything at any time puts you at risk of having very crappy days and tough choices to make. I am willing to stick it out, not even out of passion alone, but out of a very real need for it.
A need to let go of my own expectations and fear of the audience’s opinion, to share something meaningful to me, not knowing whether the spark of connection will be there. A need to share for the sake of defying shame and my desire to be liked. A need to recognize that although words are at times buzzing in my head and not making it to the page, I do commit to writing, even on dark days.
To me, writing is a form of therapy. An activity I have loved for years and that literally keeps me feeling alive and worthy. I know that when I stop writing the true hurting starts. To keep shame, loneliness and a sense of worthlessness from creeping back into my life and settling permanently I need to move ahead and release the demons of the past through writing.
When I say therapy, I mostly refer to the benefits of storytelling when stories are shared, although this account of what writing means to me would not be accurate if I didn’t mention FLOW. There are things we do in life like dancing, singing, crying, enjoying good sex, creating something, cooking, playing games, listening to music, meditating, etc. that can put us in a state of flow and ease that we all need to experience.
The state in which your inner voice telling you to fear everything vanishes, the moments in which we are not filtering the way we present ourselves in the world, the moments of magic in which authenticity shines through with no impediments, the times we feel we are soaring and reaching a new level of self-expression and consciousness.
We all need this!
Writing has also blessed me with some opportunities to be playful with language and make others laugh when on stage. When you bring stories to the light some of the seriousness falls apart. Hopefully more of that is coming in the future.
What about you? What is your favorite form of therapy? What is the thing you are so passionate about you would pursue it no matter what, even if it that meant occasionally failing at it?
Think about the little things that keep you feeling alive and well. Think about the times you have experienced a state of flow. Feel that sense of ease again. Think about the ways you express yourself. The first step to change a bleak world of isolation and judgement is to defy its rules!
Find your bubbles of bliss! Connect!
With gratitude for my awesome crap sandwich,
Dare to be b@ld
Dare to be b@ld 