One of the hardest things about telling your story can be anticipating people’s reactions to it. This can be true if you are sharing it with one person or with hundreds. Maybe they experienced it differently than you did. Maybe they have a perception of you that doesn’t feel like it matches what you are telling them. Regardless the case, it can often feel like your words and experiences are up for debate.

It can be really scary to put your words out into the world, whether with strangers or those closest to you. And, I would venture to say, it becomes harder the closer the people are to you. Sometimes I wonder why I keep waking up and doing this – this whole sending-the-words-out-into-the-world thing. But, as I have said, this is the single thing I can never get away from and I can’t seem to live without it.

Our fears of what others might think or say can stop us from doing any number of things in our lives – and telling our own stories is one of those things. It can be really scary to tell our stories. It can be even scarier to let it up to others to do so.

When we write things down, we give them room to breathe and a place to exist. No longer do they only exist in our minds. And often, when we see those black and white letters on a page, we feel the shift in ourselves, pulling it into focus, making it all seem a little more real. Telling it our way and in our own words helps add to the validation of what we have gone through.

People might have a lot of opinions about your life – what you have gone through, what you should have done, what you could be doing now – but it isn’t really up to them, is it? What you experienced was real and how you felt about it was just as real. The feelings that you took away from the experience have shaped you as much as the experiences themselves.

When we leave it up to other people to interpret our stories and what we have gone through, we release our ability to have our own truths heard. No one understands your life better than you do; no one has experienced things exactly as you have. And so, no one can weave together the stories and lessons you can.

I’m in the process of writing a book about the last ten years of my life – the heartache, illness, addiction, pain, loneliness, struggles, and ultimately the hope on the other side of all of those things. Almost every day I wake up with crushing fear of how it all will land. Did I explain it correctly? Did I get all the details right? Did I remember the dialogue? Who will this offend? Who won’t agree with this? If I live in those questions for too long, there is no chance I will create much of anything. All my carefully crafted words will land on the page and dissolve because they don’t hold any weight. I have to trust that my vulnerability has always been the thing to carry me through. I have to trust that my story can stand for itself and that it will help those who read it.

It’s a wonderful thing, really, to have your words exist somewhere in the world. What are you drawn to create and what might be holding you back? Whatever it is, it is yours. And it is not up for debate.