When we reframe our fear as love, the page can become a place of freedom
Earlier today, I happened to come across an article I wrote about four or five years ago here. It was a piece about stepping out in your marketing and growing your business, and all that doing that can bring up – especially the fears.
And, funny enough, it was the perfect message for something I’m facing right now, with my own writing and sharing in the world.
So, I thought I’d adapt the piece for myself. Maybe it might be helpful for you too? Especially if you’re longing to write something or if you have a writing project that keeps whispering to you.
It can, I think, apply to other things, beyond writing and marketing as well, like stepping out in any way. See what you think.
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Maybe you've finally decided that this is it, you’re going to start writing again. Maybe it’s been a long time since you’ve written anything, or perhaps, like me, you’ve been on again and off again with your practice. Perhaps you've been writing for a while now, and you you’re ready try something new, like submitting to publications or starting a Substack.
Maybe you have an opportunity to collaborate with another writer, bringing new visibility to yourself and your work. Or perhaps, you're about to undertake something big – like querying agents for your novel or launching your own literary magazine.
If you find yourself here, you may've wondered - at least a little - am I up to this? What if I'm not?
Fears of Every Kind
Writing and sharing your work can bring up a lot of fear and worry for writers of all kinds. Sometimes those fears are known. For example, I've had writer clients and colleagues say to me – I can't share my personal essays. My family doesn't know about my struggles or my true thoughts on what happened. Or, I don’t know, I don’t feel like I have anything interesting to say. Who’d read it anyway?
Other times, often, fears languish in the subconscious. For example, I've known writers who have finished manuscripts, essays, or poetry collections and aren't submitting them. They think it's because of one thing - but underneath, there's a belief system or fear they didn't realize they had.
Sometimes the worries are small – what if the reading doesn't go well? What if no one comes to my book launch? What if I offend someone by writing about difficult topics?
Other times they're bigger - What if I pour all this time, heart, soul, and vulnerability onto these pages, and no one wants to read them? What if I never get published? What if I have to give up writing? Or I can't make this dream work?
I know those fears. And they can feel really, really big.
The Real Reason I Wasn’t Writing
Recently, I had to ask myself, again, why I hadn’t yet shared a post of personal writing, as I’ve been saying I wanted to for [checks planner] about six weeks now. For a while, it seemed there were logistical things in my way – understanding the platform, finding a theme, etc. But once I figured out those things, ummm, I still wasn’t doing it.
So, I took a few moments to meditate and read the energy of the situation. And there it was…plain old fear.
Fear I'll mess up, write something terrible, or otherwise miss the mark completely. Fear I won't be connected to my authentic voice while writing. And there was a fleeting worry that I just wouldn't be able to do it. That I'm not cut out for this level or type of writing.
Maybe, a part of me thought, I just don't have it in me to craft something worthy the way I really want to be able to show up and write?
The X-Factor Factor
I sometimes think about the contestants on The X Factor. The ones who, during the try-outs phase, step to the mic and tell the judges that they've dreamed of singing their whole lives. Ever since they were little, all they can remember is they've wanted to sing. And then, they start singing, and it’s pretty bad.
My heart hurts, not because of their singing but because the judges roll their eyes. Because the producers have purposefully selected these auditions along with other ones that will assuredly end up in the finals. Because it's intended to make us all laugh, and yet it's not funny.
When I watched these performances in the past, I assumed those contestants were crushed when it happened. And yet, other times, they seem strangely collected. Unruffled by the whole experience.
Here's what I've come to realize: Those contestants weren't completely inadequate or insufficient for purpose. The show needed them, and they needed the show. It just wasn't in the way they expected.
All From the Source of Love
The Divine works this way.
When facing your writing, you might find yourself thinking that it needs to look a certain way. That your story needs to be received in a particular manner. You forget, assuming you're in charge, and try to control how readers will respond by writing in a certain way or worrying about a certain aspect…
And then, if or when, things don't work out like you expected them to, it hurts.
The thing is, none of us, certainly not me, know the bigger plan for our writing journeys.
Sometimes we get hints. We post a piece, and someone comments. We share a poem, and someone tells us it’s love. We may submit pieces and they get accepted. Or we write other things, and no one says anything. Or they get rejected.
What I realized, yet again this week, it's the fear of it all not working the way you expect it to that can keep you stuck.
It can keep you from writing in the first place.
But what happens when we remember that everything in the world comes from the Source of Love, including our words and stories?
How might that open us up?
Feeling Free
What if? What if you could come to see even the experience of possible rejection as an act of love? What if something wonderful was made from that experience?
It might just refuel you. It might help you remember the reason you love writing in the first place. It might release you.
It might just bring you home.
I think about those contestants sometimes. Maybe having faced the worst thing that could happen to them, ever, and having lived through it, they feel suddenly free. They feel free to give up and move on from what they've been pursuing. Free to set it aside for a moment.
Or what if, miraculously, they feel free to keep on singing with no further expectations. They can sing simply for the joy of it. Because, despite having been judged, they know without a doubt that it's something they love.
What might they do with freedom like that?
What might you do— with your pen, your keyboard, your voice?