Here Come the Stories.
Why I Started Sharing Personal Stories & Struggles
I’ve been hesitant to center my writing around personal stories about my life. Part of me feels uncomfortable, not wanting to make things about me. Another part of me worries I’ll be judged, whether it’s for making things about me or anything else people might want to judge me for. These are the internal voices that have kept me from connecting my creative work too deeply with my personal experiences.
The external voices of dear friends and loved ones have sung a different tune. Instead of cautioning me against sharing my life, they remind me of the power of story, along with how many *interesting* stories I have to tell — with the word *interesting* being a polite way to communicate something like, “You’ve walked through a crazy amount of pain and grief, it’s honestly unbelievable.”
As a counselor in the therapy room, I don’t have to explicitly share stories for my clients to know that I empathize with their pain and their grief. They can feel it at a gut level just by sitting in the room together. As people, all the way down in our nervous system, we can sense if someone gets it, if they’re safe. Stories can help this, but in person, presence is everything.
And that’s the sticking point I’ve come to — anything I share in a space like this is only by means of spoken or written words, detached from my in-person presence. So, here come the stories.
I’ve started this in the podcast series, simultaneously cringing and delighting in the feelings that come along with share more of my internal experience with the outside world. I think there will always be parts of me that will wonder and worry about how people will perceive what I share. I also think there will always be parts of me that stay convinced that the discomfort is worth the potential impact.
I know what it’s like to sit with someone who really offers their presence, someone who is safe and knows pain. It’s therapeutic. It’s calming. It’s dignifying. It’s like a breath of fresh air coupled with a side of hope. I can feel seen, known, understood, validated, and not alone. For me, this last one is big. If my stories can supplement for the deficit of doing being together in person to help even one person feel any of the above things, then it’s worth the discomfort. So, here come the stories.
As you read or listen to anything in this space, please hear the many times I’ll add caveats to my experiences, knowing that we experience different things in different ways. I never want how I have journeyed through something to feel like a standard or judgment against someone else journeying differently. Please know, that’s not my heart. My heart is simply to offer a real and raw experience of being human that is messy, complex, and can maybe, just maybe, bring hope.
The hope piece is significant for me. I have spent of life seasons without much hope, and it’s brutal. This isn’t a, Do what I’ve done and things will change! kind of a place. Instead, it’s a place that says, I don’t know what you’re walking through or how things will go, all I know is what I known. I’ll freely share with you what I’ve come to know — take it or leave it. If it brings you even an ounce of hope, even the small hint of coming alive, then my heart will be overjoyed.
And with that, here come the stories.