I have been trying to find the seed to write as I have been reluctant/resistant to tell my stories and reveal all the mucky truths … still that fearful little girl inside not wanting to invite the wrath of volatile family members who offer nothing without conditions … so I have been trying to write everything apart from what is trying to be written. 

There are opposing voices in my head—one warning me the just be quiet because of the impact the truth has, and the other down on its knees begging for this truth to be told. Truth isn’t the same as facts. Truth is something deeper. 

After an episode of coercive manipulation last year, I no longer feel the need to fawn or fight as I lean into what Anne Lamott says: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better”.

I can’t tell a powerful story if I’m afraid of hurting people—writing from a place of fear is never a good way to proceed. My first obligation as I forge ahead is to the truth of my story and that means not censoring myself. 

Some stories need to be told, and while the telling may come with some fallout, my compulsion to share my own story is because it helps others feel less alone; those who need to be reminded that in a world of eight billion people, it is inevitable that there is going to be an awful lot of shared experience and, although we all have our unique interpretations of events, we are not unique in our struggles. We mostly just need help getting to the other side of them.

This is what my work is all about—not transcending anything but simply being my authentic dark and twisty self so that I can hold those parts of other wounded souls. I am not into false positivity; I am into real hard life stuff … the cracks and breaks that guide the way into the gifts that each one of us has.

My lifelong studies, self development and spiritual growth have led me to the gifts I was born with—not to tell people to let go of the past and leave the pain alone but to sit with them in their past and in their pain. It is only in going into the dark that one can one day come out into the light once more.

My pen is my sword as I now sit down and write.