Despite all the glorification of personal story-telling as a way to connect and heal, please, please don’t tell your story…
…to the entire internet, especially when your story is still raw
when it may fall on judgmental or even cruel ears,
and you do so in fear, pushing through in the name of our all-hallowed Vulnerability.
Please don’t tell your story…
…when it is not in service, or in healing, of yourself or others.
…when re-telling your story is re-traumatizing to yourself or those who hear it
and especially not when you label that re-traumatization as an altruism; a way to prevent what happened to you from happening to others.
Please, please don’t tell your story…
…for the number of “likes” your pain will receive on Facebook, for the attention your bravery will garner,
for others’ pity and voyeuristic curiosity, disguised as support and community.
Please, please don’t tell your story…
…when it is a thinly-veiled way of putting yourself on the pedestal of success and triumph-over-adversity, leaving others wanting what you have
(and, in the process, ignoring the fact that there actually is no “formula” for what you’ve got).
…and especially when you are telling your story to profit from your perceived now-knowingness or all-knowingness, from people’s sense of insecurity in their ability to find their own way.
Please, please tell your story…
…to those who truly know how to hold it. To those who know the power of silence, to those who withhold judgment or even superficial comforting. To those who can hold space for your pain and your growth. (These people, I have found, are rarer than you might think).
Please tell your story…
…in a way that promotes learning and healing and processing. In a way that takes your story and does something with it, so that you can carry it forth with a renewed perspective and deepened understanding.
Please tell your story…
…when it is truly of service.
And if you’re not sure, keep holding fast to it as a sacred piece of yourself
only to be shared with exquisite discernment and incisive truth.
Tell your story..
…when telling is healing, and healing is telling
(which is what happens when you find yourself growing and seeing new things in the telling, and not merely in the act of telling itself).
Tell your story…
…when it is bursting inside of you, when it longs to be told, when you know it has ripened and the time has come, for you and for the carefully-chosen witnesses to your process.
Tell your story…
when in the telling, you and those around you
transform.