Sharing is Caring

By now, I hope by now y’all know I write because I enjoy it. For some bizarre reason, I enjoy opening up my heart, my mind, and my soul and getting it all down on a piece of paper. I enjoy sharing this with friends, family, and random strangers on a regular basis. Why do I enjoy this?

Because I believe my thoughts, feelings, and hardships aren’t unique. In fact, I know they are not. My specific experiences are unique to me, but the basic underlying themes they are presenting in my life are universal. While my ego wishes regularly that I am special, I am the only me after all, I know my soul belongs with everyone. It is connected to each and every person I met on some level. Some are positive, some are negative, we are all connected. Thus, I write in hopes that some phrase or string of words I form together will strike something in your soul that makes you see…I’m not alone. Because when we are going through the hardships of our lives whether it is a day, a week, a month, a year, years, or a lifetime, even if it is for simply a single slight moment…the tricky thing hardships do is make us believe we are alone in our hardship. No one could possibly understand what we are going through because no one cares, knows, or understands.

For me, the hardship is my depression, which I have labeled in a friendlier term “overwhelm.” On my overwhelmed days life is simply harder. Simple tasks seem impossible leaving the to-do list growing more and more with each overwhelming moment. For the constant overachiever, who sincerely believes she can do everything all on her own, the growing “to do” list leads to more overwhelm. To the point, the list, life, seems to be a little impossible. This is the cruel trick of overwhelm or depression.

Over the past week and a half, I’ve had a lot of overwhelm. I promised myself this move would be different. I wouldn’t rush into things. I would take things slow. Find my groove. Find my people. Find the job aligned with my soul that would allow me to pursue my writing interests. Basically, I was looking for a money maker until somehow, somewhere down the line these simple words on the page start paying a bill, some bills, the bills.

Wow, how silly and simplistic that sounds. How scary it is to think by writing it on this page, sooner or later y’all will know my hopes and dreams. It’s scary to write these things out. It’s scary to share your hopes and dreams with strangers. It’s even scarier to share them with those surrounding you every day. How scary it is to admit to myself because I know it won’t be an easy road, but I know it is the road I wish to pursue for the time being and how I really fucking hope this time I have it right. I hope this wish, this dream, this career…is the one my soul is meant to align with because fuck it’d be earth-shattering to go through the heartbreak of another failed career.

So, here’s to hoping I’ve found the right path. Here’s the hoping I have the courage to put my money where my mouth is and write. To show up consistently, not worry about what others may think of my thoughts, feelings, and hardships, and share unapologetically. Being seen for who I truly am and want to be…is the bravest thing I’ve ever done. I would rather move to a foreign country where I didn’t know the language than share part of my heart with anyone.

Why?

Because I’m afraid parts of me aren’t loveable. Parts of my heart are shameful. Actions I’ve partaken in shouldn’t be shared because they are wrong. When in reality once I start sharing my stories, I know deep in my soul some will laugh and say, “That’s all you got sis…let me share with you something worse.” Because typically your worst day, moment, thought is someone’s Tuesday! That’s just the way life is. Those are the tricks our mind plays on us to keep us small, contained. But life isn’t meant to be small or contained, at least not the life I plan to live.

Thus, here I am. Writing. I’ve had a roadblock in writing since I’ve been here. I don’t feel anything I’ve written has been profound or touched the inner parts of anyone’s soul. Maybe inspiring. Maybe moving the way, I did, leaving a career that was no longer suiting me makes me seem brave, or courageous. But to me, that’s my Tuesday!

Moving is easy. Finding a job is easy. Creating a space to live is easy.

Being settled isn’t easy. Finding a routine isn’t easy. Making a home isn’t easy.

But these are the things I’m in search of. These are the things I’ve been doing the past few weeks, and over the past week, these are the things that overwhelmed my thoughts. They were overwhelming until I listened to a podcast with an author I had never heard of, Sue Monk Kidd. She is the author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Longing. Books I’ve heard of. Books I’ll probably never read because I love my nonfiction so much. Apparently, she writes nonfiction as well. Maybe I’ll read some of those…someday. I’ll at least add them to the list.

Either way, in this podcast she said writing for her is an act of courage. I never thought about writing in this way. I don’t think it takes courage to write, it takes courage to share your writing. It takes courage to stick to your writing. To write, then edit, then share.

I’ve written things over the past two weeks since I published my last blog. It hasn’t been a ton or as much as usual. Yet, I have been writing. The writing to me wasn’t worth sharing. Thus I didn’t share it. It got saved to my computer or was placed as a note in my phone that will become buried with the rest of the unpublished thoughts that ramble through my head. By the way, I have over 500 notes on my phone, most of them random scribbles I would have put on paper if the notes app in my phone wasn’t so damn handy all the time. Sometimes I go back and I read one or two, I know the writing is good. I know it would make a connection with someone. Yet, I don’t have the courage to share that piece of my heart yet.

Sharing is courageous.

Sharing to me is not only posting the blog. Posting the blog alone doesn’t mean much. Most of you will never see it if I simply post the blog because you have to have some subscribed to get alerts about it. To be honest, I’m not even sure how you do that, but I know a handful of you have. The next courageous act is sending a link in an email to those who have subscribed to my email list. Typically, I have the courage to do this directly after I post the blog. Sometimes it takes a day of guilting myself into the action. The last final step to me being seen for my writing, as a writer, is posting to Instagram. I realize this seems so simple, so silly, but it is the hardest step because this is the step that gets the most people over to my read my blog. I see it in my view counts. Don’t worry I don’t know who reads it and who doesn’t, but I can see the number of views between which action step(s) I take. If I only post…lowest. If I post and email…little more. If I post, email, and insta…highest. Thus, getting my blog the most views and me the most seen, and making me the most terrified.

Why am I telling you this?

I’m telling you this to encourage you to find your courage to be seen. I’m telling you this, so you understand this is not an action that comes easy to me. Writing is second nature. Sharing is not. While others have always seen me as the outgoing, bubbly type, I have not. I see myself as quiet at times when I should be sharing my voice, my mind, and my opinion. I’m quiet because I fear rejection. When I feel the parts of me, I want to share are too much for those around me, I shrink into the little comfortable box society and myself has made for me.

I no longer want to shrink. I no longer want to play small. I no longer want to be tolerable for the masses. I want to be my true authentic self. I want to share my true authentic self with y’all to inspire you to show up in your life as your true authentic selves as well.

I don’t know the parts of you, you’re afraid to share with the world, but this is me challenging you to share them. Either with a stranger or a close friend, whichever is easier. Because I can say this, the more you show up as yourself and your true authentic self is accepted by others, the easier it is. The easier it is to show up as your true self, to share your true self with others, and to be your true happy authentic self.

That is my wish for you all. Because while I am not there yet, I have experienced moments of being fully seen, heard, and accepted. There are no better moments in life than feeling fully accepted for you. The real you.