We All Have A Story—Be Brave Enough To Read Yours Out Loud

We all have a story, with chapters we are proud of and moments in our lives we have felt at our best and most happy—the parts we enjoy reading back with a smile.

And we all have chapters we do not like to recall, experiences that have hurt and brought us pain beyond measure, challenges that have not been so easily overcome.

Perhaps there are difficult chapters we are currently living in now, the words not easy to find in times of anguish and heartbreak, struggle, and doubt.

It might seem easier to skip over these chapters, but for the story to make sense, every line has to be read, despite the difficulty in doing so.

The truth is that we hide ourselves and our emotions from the world when we are suffering, as if the only way to manage the pain is to give in to the silence of it and let it engulf us.

We become lost in the darkness of our thoughts and feelings and we isolate ourselves from others, as if pouring our pain out will make us even weaker than we already feel.

Sometimes, the most painful chapters of our lives are the ones we need to share with the world. We need to let people know when it hurts, that the weight of our thoughts and emotions we carry is too heavy to do alone.

We need to share our truth with those who love and care for us, those who can support us, to let it propel us forward into gaining clarity and peace, instead of living with the shame or guilt of something we believe is holding us back.

When we are hiding ourselves, wearing a mask to the world that we think would be better than the truth we carry underneath, we are not being true to ourselves or others around us. When we try to push away our fear or anxieties, low mood or previous trauma, we are fooling ourselves that this negative energy will pass on its own. When we think we can carry the weight of it alone, we often find it overwhelms us.

Often, we cling to pain and suffering because it feels familiar, like a shadow following us despite the sunshine. We often do not believe that by letting it go, we could achieve real happiness, as if we need to hold on to it as a reminder of all we have been through. We need to acknowledge that these chapters do not define our story but instead add depth to our character and the places we have found ourselves on our written journey.

True healing starts from within. It is accepting our present circumstances and our past experiences, everything that has brought us to this point in our story, and to acknowledge that these are only parts of our plotline.

To heal, we have to accept where we find ourselves now so we can change where we want to go next.

We need to be kind and understanding to ourselves on our journey as we navigate through each page of the process, to feel every emotion we encounter, no matter how much it might hurt us, or to say the words we have been too afraid to admit aloud, even to ourselves. It is important not to hide who we are but to embrace ourselves fully, with all of our pieces, and let our real selves be present.

We need to be brave and let go of what keeps us from moving forward in our life story, to stand tall in moments we feel like we are shrinking, and to communicate what we need to say, even if it is only a whisper. Because we owe ourselves healing and happiness. We deserve to be heard in the silence of our suffering. We do not have to fight our pain alone.

Every chapter we have already lived through has taught us we have the strength to keep going until we find the solace we seek.

And one day soon, we will be able to tell our story without it hurting. We are the authors of our own destiny, and we owe it to ourselves to make our next chapter the best one yet.