Does Your Story *Really* Matter?
We must tell stories of our own becoming.
Hello dear reader,
I want to ask you a question.
And it's kinda important.
Do you believe your story matters?
Like, really and truly matters?
I’m not just talking about your belief in the power of stories in general. Not only “important” stories or dramatic stories or beautiful stories or chicken-soup-for-the-soul sweet stories or inspirational stories or mind-blowing-out-of-this-world-wildly-unbelievable stories.
YOUR story.
Yes. Your mundane, regular-ole-human, everyday, ordinary, AND extraordinary stories.
(leave a comment and let me know, and then come back and read the rest, I want your unfiltered answer)
I've learned a lot over the past two decades of writing this life of mine.
But the most important one I can share is this:
Telling your story matters.
Not just the stories that follow the hero’s journey. Not just the tales of happiness and light, of glittering freedom or triumph. Not just the ones with the hallmark movie redemption arc—though they have their place and should not be forgotten.
It matters that we tell the real stories. The gritty stories. The uncomfortable stories that push us into our edges.
The not-at-all dramatic everyday stories. Where not much seems to happen but somehow by the final chapter everything has changed.
The stories of the dark and desperate nights. Of the demons and the devastation. Of the things done to us and the all we have done in the name of our own freedom.
The stories we are not supposed to tell. Of our want and our desire. Of our sex and our back-door pathways to whatever or whoever we called savior at the time.
The stories of days so unremarkable in their simplicity that somehow reached a level of perfection you never imagined could be yours.
Of the life stored in our bones, and the things we have broken and built on our path to saving ourselves.
We must tell stories of our own becoming.
On our own terms and in our way and in our own time.
With autonomy and sovereignty and yes—choice.
When we tell our stories. We save others. Full stop.
This is not an overstatement, or a metaphor meant to give you all the feels or to power up this essay.
This is a truth. I know it not just because stories have saved me.
I know because I still get emails and comments and DMs:
Messages that say “I stumbled onto your writing on the darkest of nights and I read and read and read and your words gave me hope and because of this I am still here (doing my work in the world, or living my life on my own terms, or here and alive and still on this planet”)."
Words like these are not easy for me to hold. They push against my own struggle with purpose and bigness, with the voices that tell me to not take credit for such a thing. That I’m not that special or important or powerful and neither is my story.
This week pushed me up against all of the edges of my own worthiness wounds. I questioned what I am doing and why I am doing it and yes - even if it mattered. Struggling for balance, for security, for some sort of affirmation or validation that I was still somehow on the right track.
And then the universe (wise force that she is) taped on my should and reminded me, right when I needed it the most.
On Saturday I got dressed up as Hecate—goddess of magic and crossroads, guardian of liminal spaces—and I attended a big Halloween dance party. I hadn’t been there even a half hour when someone approached me and told me my book was on their bedside table. That it had been gifted to them after a very bad heartbreak, and that the words within had helped them move through those dark days, had reminded them they were worthy of being seen. We hugged tight and went on our way.
We never know how far our words will reach, or when they will circle back to find us again.
Right when I needed it the most, that woman walked out of a swirl of costumed humans and gave me a bigger gift than she will likely ever know.
Because here’s the thing, if stories have saved me again and again (and they have and they did and they do – more times than I can count) then who am I to push back these truths given to me by others?
Who am I to accept them with anything but the most humble and holy gratitude for the fact that somehow in this wild and miraculous world my story pushed its way out of me and then filtered and twisted and found its way to the very place it was needed the most?
Blessed be. Blessed be. Blessed be.
These affirmations from the outside world remind me of what I know to be true:
The bravery it takes to tell your story has the power to save lives.
Some time ago I posted on Facebook to ask others if they felt the same. I asked:
Would you say that writing—telling your story—has saved you? Would you say that your stories have saved others?
The answer, of course, was as I expected.
Yes.
Again and again and again. From the inside out and the outside in. Telling our stories, pouring them ou—whether in a voice memo or onto a private journal or for the world to see—it has the power to change everything. For us and for those our story reaches.
Yes, our writing has saved others.
And then when we most need to feel seen and known and understood, we search relentlessly to find our story out in the world— and if we get lucky we stumble onto a story that helps us find our lived experience tucked into the words written by another.
This saves lives. This saves hearts. This saves relationships and voices and experiences.
Yes, our writing saves us.
Back in 2007, I was inching around the beginning of understanding my sexuality that would ultimately shatter the life I knew. I stayed up late into the night searching and searching for something, anything, anyone who was telling a story that felt like mine. I needed to know I wasn’t the only one. I needed, on that 3 am reckoning, to know I was not alone.
I couldn’t find that story, so I began writing it. Anonymously. With raw honesty and complete openness. And slowly others found me. And then none of us were quite so alone. We saved each other. If I had not taken that bold leap into the words of that story I would not be here today telling you all of these stories.
Yes, writing has saved me.
Writing is a seed for empathy, advocacy and activism, and justice.
For visibility and inclusion and validation.
It is the root of connection.
It is a pathway to landing gently inside the hardest truths.
It is a way to make real what is unreal, to give voice to the voiceless.
It is the way, in this wild and sometimes incomprehensible world, we feel just a little less alone.
It is why we have gathered around campfires and carved symbols into cave walls since the beginning of recorded time.
We are creatures of story. We use stories to make meaning of our experiences, and then—if we pay attention—they make meaning of us.
And in case you still doubt.
On the off chance that you are reading this and still imagine I am talking about someone else. Someone with a bigger and more exciting life. Or something with an easier and simpler and less traumatic life. I want you to read this again.
There is a space and a place and a need for stories—for YOUR stories.
I know it like I know my own heart.
It is my life’s work—not just to write myself, but to swing wide open the doors and throw off the bars and remove the barriers between you and your story.
To counter the messages you’ve absorbed about your life or your experience or your ability to write it.
To dismantle everything built up inside of you that separates you from your own innate power.
To sit you down in a room full of blazing light and ultimate permission and give you endless pages ready for the translation of your experience into the words only you can write.
The story only you can tell.
And then when it has poured out of you, and the pages are covered and your fingers are ink-stained and you have finished, I am here to say –
This here, what you have done….
It is good.
It is holy and hard and true and necessary.
Because your words have the power to save.
To heal.
To collect the scattered pieces.
To knit back to wholeness that which is broken.
To unleash the constraints that hold us to lives that are no longer meant for us.
To illuminate the dark corners and set us free.
These words and these stories can save a life.
Who knows – maybe even your own.
Hell yes, writing has the power to save.
But only if you begin.
What words want to pour from your heart right now?
What stories are pulsing through your bloodstream and echoing in the chambers of your heart?
Where are you seeking the saving grace of connection and where do you begin to offer it?
Start there. With one question. With one answer. With a single word.
Just begin.
The answer is yes. A holy, resounding, unequivocal yes.
Your story matters.
YOUR story.
The one only you can tell.
If this message spoke to you. If you have been pressing down the stories in your bones, trying to ignore the way they keep trying to bubble up, up and over. If you have been looking for a pathway to dig into the wildly every day, perfectly ordinary, and entirely magical story of you - I am calling in a circle of Wild Heart Writers.
We begin on November 1st.
This is a circle meant for all. This community is not just for those who have been writing for years. Who have been confidently splashing their truths around the internet or down on the page (although, holy hell yes if this is you, you belong).
This circle is for you if you've been a lifelong journaler who is ready to inch their way out of the confines of the ruled pages of your diary.
This circle is for you if you fill your days with words written by others and can't seem to stop wishing that you were the one writing them.
This circle is for you even if you're not so sure about the writing bit, but you've been living so much of your life supporting the stories of all those around you and you've been longing for a space that is all about exploring the stories that define you.
This circle is for you if you have a story. This is to say that this circle is for you if you have lived a life, and you're finally ready to begin to believe that that life has meaning that just might extend beyond your own immediate experience.
Come join us, and write your way into the magic of you.
