When Writing Hurts
I used to be an expert. Now I’m a beginner.
I used to be an expert. Now I’m a beginner.
For a large part of my life, I owned both a physical and an Internet business devoted to subjects broadly described as “New Age.” I was an expert and recognized authority on vibrational healing, personal growth, and related subjects. I wrote two popular newsletters, taught courses, and wrote books.
I wrote from the perspective of my own experience and didn’t avoid describing some spectacular fails. I thought I was being vulnerable and sharing myself, but even when I believed that I was being thoroughly honest and self-revealing, my expertise protected me. Without knowing it, I was saying, “I used to be there, but now I’m not, and from my no-longer-there point of view, let me give you some tested advice.”
In retrospect, I cringe at the unintended condescension of my approach to my readers.
When I first found Medium, I discovered an entirely different approach to writing. Yes, many experts inhabit the platform, and they belong here. If I want to read an article on specific subjects, I’m looking for expertise.
But if I wake up feeling heartbroken, I want to read something by a person who convinces me that she or he knows heartbreak intimately and doesn’t expect that it will never return because of the foolproof technique he or she learned and will now graciously share with me.
That doesn’t mean I’m looking for misery. I’m looking for strength, for the awareness that I’m not alone in this mess, and for the faith that somehow we will all get through this.
That’s what I want to share in my writing.
And sometimes it hurts.
The Dark Side
Being truly honest and vulnerable means crawling out of the cocoon of expertise into an unfamiliar and possibly (probably) hostile environment.
James Jordan described this beautifully in the Medium article, “Learning to Write for Me.”
“I don’t care at all if you reject my writing and say it is awful. But now I am giving you the opportunity to reject the real me by writing about my own world. Why would a sane person do this?”
Yes, why? I’ve asked myself that so many times. When I don’t want to write an article, I come up with infinite excuses, all of which avoid the basic truth that I’m scared to expose myself and the even deeper truth that this level of self-exploration is painful.
The person I most don’t want to expose myself to is me.
Some subjects are too dangerous for me to do more than think of writing about: my brother’s death from prescription drug abuse, my former partner who now wanders in a world of dementia. I fear going deeply into that pain, even if it would help one other people to know they’re not alone.
The Bright Side
I am a beginner, and I am beginning. I have discovered that being an expert has a serious downside. Like any other kind of success, it’s fragile and impermanent. It must constantly be defended against those determined to challenge expertise.
As an expert, I was defending my ego. My sense of being was bound up in that title of Expert. When I lived in that role, I abandoned the rest of who I was.
That deserted part of myself now wants to speak. It’s fearful and hesitant but determined.
And I’m giving it its way. I’m tired of being an expert. I’d rather be myself.
In time I will even tell the stories that hurt. I will work on them until they become stories that heal.
