“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” -Brené Brown
I’m taking time off of my own writing to introduce to you a fellow storywriter, Linda Crawford. The following is an excerpt from her story-writing tale.
“For four years I wrote. Searched for my story as I fingered letters on my keyboard, and prayed a melody would emerge from the chaos of my life. I wrestled with my story, my words, myself. I fought. I faltered. I failed.
“All writing is prayer,” said the wise and witty Anne Lamott.
For years I felt my prayers went unanswered. The pain would not go away. Then ever so slowly, it began to ebb. I kept writing, but no instant miracle came. It was one agonizingly plodding word after another—like climbing the very last, steepest section of a mountain. Exhausted, barely breathing in the thin air, and only able to focus on the ground beneath my feet.
When I started to catch glimpses of healing, I became more afraid of the life that lay ahead than the pain I was living in. I knew my pain so well, and found a deep intimacy with my creator within the pain. As crazy as it sounds, I struggled to embrace the healing changes. But I couldn’t stop what I had put in motion. What started as a desire to find some validation for my insecure, “I’m never good enough” writer self became, sometime in the process, less about a story for others to read and more about writing for the redemption of the deepest, most holy, and sacred sufferings of my life. Words that flowed like a flood for years gradually ebbed over time to become puddles of less and less tears. One day in my writing the sun came out. Full in my face sun.
Sun that woke me to the beauty of what my life could be beyond the pain, and beyond my writing about it. I stopped writing and went outside in the sun to play. And I’ve had no pain for the last six months. I honestly never imagined in those four years of agony that it would be possible.
Sometimes miracles happen in slow-motion.
Please write your story. Even if no one ever reads it. Because who you really are—healed and whole-hearted and living in the sacred space of you—must be given to you. Sometimes it’s a slow, holy process, but exploring the darkness to discover the light is so worth it.” –Linda Crawford
See Linda’s complete blog at: https://coloringlifebeautiful.com/
Next week we’ll explore another important detail in writing your own story.