Why sharing your creative work is a gift to yourself and others, even when it feels scary
Not everyone writes to share their work with the world, and that's completely okay. Some of us write purely for ourselves. We write for processing, for healing, for the sheer joy of putting words on a page.
That's beautiful and valuable work in itself.
But if you've been thinking about sharing what you write or create in any fashion – with a trusted friend, as an Instagram post, with an online journal or anything... if there's a whisper in you that wonders what it might be like to put your voice out there... if you've been hesitating at the edge of hitting "publish" or sending a piece you wrote to a journal... I’m writing something here today that might be for you.
Many people I talk to get tripped up with sharing their work because it just feels icky or just off, somehow. Some believe deeply in their call to write yet feel sharing cheapens it. Others fear being seen as pushy or self-indulgent. Still others worry about getting pulled into metrics and engagement, or feel pressured to commodify their creative work—to leap into some transactional marketing mode that feels completely at odds with why they write in the first place.
I get it. I do. I struggle with some of this at times too.
But here's what I often say to clients and colleagues when this comes up:
What if you could think about sharing your writing in a different way?
Sharing as Connection
What if sharing were about building connections? What if it were about creating bridges between you and your work and other people thirsty for your words, for your perspective?
This way, the sharing, if done with integrity and authenticity and in alignment with you, the real you, becomes a beautiful gift, both to your potential readers and to yourself.
A Gift to Your Readers
For some, your writing or creative work can become the healing they need. For others, it can offer shelter in a storm. Or balm for a battered heart.
It may be through your poems, insights, snippets, or stories. Sometimes just reading your words and knowing that you see them can be profoundly validating for some. Or hearing what you face and how you moved forward might be the spark that helps them move forward.
Or maybe they might find your words lift their hearts from a place of loneliness or frustration or despair. And takes them, even for a moment, into a different space.
I know there will be at least one person to read your words that will need to hear them. You may not know how or why or even when this happens, but when it does, it’s undoubtedly a gift.
A Gift to You Too
As you engage in sharing your creative work, you learn that much is about simply showing up. Showing up with love and consistency and intention to create connections and bridges for other people.
And that act of showing up, despite the discomfort, the not knowing or the uncertainty of outcome is, in itself, powerful. Small acts of sharing done with a great deal of Love and intention over and over again are building blocks of authentic creative practice and of growing your trust in yourself.
In doing so, you give yourself the chance to find your voice. Showing up time and time again, you give yourself a chance to hone your own singular voice, the one that comes from your soul self and your inner wisdom, wrapped in your own experiences, and delivered in a way that only you can.
As your clarity and perspective grows, this will show up in what you share writing. You'll find things you wrote a few years before no longer seem quite right, like a blouse that tugs a tiny bit now where it didn’t before. Your voice will have grown and matured.
And if you shy away from sharing your work, stepping into the messy unknown of giving your content and your voice without really knowing how they'll be received you'll never get to experience this richness.
Sharing your voice with empathy, resonance, service and in connection to Love is such a beautiful gift, for others and yourself.
Please do everyone a favor, see sharing your work as the gift that it is and let your beautiful self and creative practice shine.