“I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.”― Brené Brown
In my youth, I never had a voice. I learned silence was the best way to keep the peace. A pink faux-leather diary, its tiny key hidden in the heart of a seashell under my bed, was the one place where no one could tell me to shut up and do as I was told. There it was safe to let out a tiny wild voice only I could hear. Journaling became my lifeline.
While living in Nice, France, in the winter of 2007, I started a travel blog called Reports From the Road. Writing about my travels was easy. Sharing stories about myself wasn’t. But that once tiny voice was ravenous to speak, to write, to be heard. A thunder of words broke through the silence. Unleashed, my words refused to shut up and do as they were told.
Over the next seven years, I worked on my memoir Unspoken: A Journey From Silence to Truth. The writing process healed me in ways I couldn’t imagine. My desire to be heard became stronger than my fear of speaking my truth. So I stood up and read my stories in workshops, writing groups, to friends, to anyone who’d listen.
I moved to Portugal in 2017. My first winter there was a long dark night of the soul. As the wind off the Atlantic rattled the single-paned windows, as the rain slashed down sideways, as the unheated apartment brought a chill deep into my bones, I found myself filled with a deep loneliness from the isolation.
I missed the daily discipline of writing that helped me finish my memoir. I needed a new project so I started my first social media account on Instagram. At first, uncertain of what I wanted to say, my posts were short. It was only by showing up to write almost every day that I found out there was a lot I wanted to say.
Over the years of posting on Instagram, I received messages from followers suggesting I put my stories into a book. Because of their encouragement, the seed of an idea was planted. I stopped posting and spent the next few years creating the Wild Woman’s Workbook: Unleash Your Writing & Your Life.
Being a writer takes encouragement. The word encouragement comes from the Old French word encoragier, meaning to be brave or bold, to inspire with courage, and to embolden. Without the encouragement of others, my writing would not have gone beyond my own eyes.
I want my words to make a difference and inspire other women to write and share their stories. As Maya Angelou said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”