I can finally say that I am a writer and a poet. Why couldn’t I claim myself as a writer before now? I wasn’t good enough. My realization came after, not before I self published my first memoir. It came after decades of journaling, and writing poems in those journals. It came after, not before publishing my first book of poetry and several magazine articles. It came when I gave myself permission to write for nobody else but me.
I spent most of my twenty year career as a healthcare professional wanting to write a book. You can ask my husband how many times I uttered those words to him over the years and didn’t do anything about it. Surely my experience in the medical world gave me the know-how. I had even been told I was a good writer by people who knew what they were talking about. Still, what made what I had to say matter?
The battle in my head about this very thing has been epic. If only I could make the forty year old career woman’s version of the Call Of Duty video game with the war I have inside my head about self worth. Goodness knows you would buy that just for the shock and awe value. It took a long time to stop believing those voices, and recognize they weren’t mine.
The voices are still present but they are getting old and boring at this point. Now that I know they aren’t me, the “I’m not good enough,” “What will they say about me,” and “What if nobody likes it” are slowly turning into muffled noise like when one of the Peanuts characters is talking on the phone. I can’t make out what they are saying, and I don’t really want to anymore.
The biggest reason I didn’t share my stories with the world at first was that I did not think what I had to say was worth anything. My own self worth was lacking and the inner critic was loud. Loud enough to shut me down and shrivel me into a three year old little girl, afraid of her own shadow. My own awareness of what was happening inside of me would have to grow before I would be able to write for others. I would need to love myself before I would have the courage to do what I needed to do with my writing.
Laura Munson, best selling author of “This Isn’t The Story You Think It is. An Unlikely Season Of Happiness” told me that the number one block for any writer is the inner critic who tells us that our voice, our style, our stories aren’t interesting enough or original enough. I will be attending Laura’s amazing writing retreat called Haven in February where she helps writers become aware of that inner critic. She says the idea is to get that critic to take a nap, so that we can get to the business of sharing our gifts with the world.
The next biggest reason I’ve held back my writing in the past is that I have been afraid to lose friends and family over it. When I write, I always take the risk of being judged, and of being vulnerable, two reasons Laura says we have to figure out why we are writing in the first place. “I have found that when we write with integrity, responsibility, and out of a place of service…then we can write about anything,” she goes on to say.
So the first person I decided to be of service to with my writing was myself. I decided that the writing that I needed to do to heal was the most important writing I would ever do in my life, and I gave myself permission to do it, no matter how vulnerable that ended up making me. And that was the day I started calling myself a writer. It had nothing to do with being published, or getting any kind of positive feedback. It had to do with the writing coming from a place that flowed from my soul.
Funny enough, shortly after this time, I started getting comments like, “You are so brave,” and “Thank you for sharing, that was so brave of you.” I sat back and read those comments and wondered why they were calling me brave. I was just sharing my truth, my real self, with the world. I was, in my honesty and through my pain, allowing others to connect. That didn’t seem brave at the time. It just felt like what I needed to do to not feel alone. I did it for me.
The fears of unworthiness, and judgement, and that inner critic always asking “Just who do you think you are?” can be paralyzing. It will only be when you step back and make some space from that voice, allowing yourself to be aware of what is going on as an observer, that you will realize that the voices that are shutting you down aren’t you. You have way more power than that. You, awake and aware and fiercely alive inside of yourself will be the one who decides on your fate.
I had to take my little girl by the hand and show her there was nothing to be afraid of. I had to take Laura’s advice and step out of my comfort zone on a regular basis, surrendering to the feelings of fear and vulnerability, but acting despite them. Most of all I had to give myself permission to write from a place that I knew was healing my own wounds. When I tapped into the flow of my soul, it was then that I knew I was a writer, and that what I had to say would help heal the world.
