This is why we speak up
Last week I shared one of my most vulnerable posts - writing about my tarot journaling practice and how it’s helping me deal with life’s changes. It was a real ‘cringe and hit publish’ moment but I’m so pleased I did.
From the positive feedback and comments I had it’s clear that my words struck a chord with a lot of women feeling the same way. “I’m so pleased you posted this” was a constant message that came back.
It was a post that I would loved to have written months ago but I didn’t feel confident enough to share it. In any case I lacked a platform to do so. It was too ‘off niche’ for Instagram, too personal for Twitter or Facebook and too ‘off topic’ for my blog. But as I’ve spent more time on Substack I’ve come to realise two things.
Firstly - and obviously - this is an incredibly supportive and empowering community. Folks here are overwhelmingly positive and value authenticity and honesty above all else.
Secondly and more importantly, I’ve realised that there are a huge number of people (mainly women) who feel much as I do. They have things to say but they worry about saying them out loud. They have important things to say, a huge amount of life experience and wisdom to share and yet they fear what will happen if they speak up. Fear of being mocked, ignored or belittled or just fear of the unknown. It all conspires together to keep us small, keep us quiet.
of the Substack got in touch to say that after reading my post she’d decided to stop holding back and had been inspired to set some serious goals for her publication. And honestly that was just the nicest feeling ever. To know that my words had helped someone and inspired them to take meaningful action in their own work.And just think of the domino effect that could have. If Sarah’s words reach someone who really needed to read them that day, and they went on to take a step along their own creative path. Spreading belief in ourselves - one little creative spark at a time until eventually all the thousands of tiny sparks come together.
My analogy muscles are feeling the strain here but I’m sure you can feel the energy of where I am going with this and the fact that when in doubt, we should basically speak up.
We never know who is listening and we never know what might ignite that spark within another creative human being.
You know me - I love a bit of journaling - and so I’ve added some journaling prompts below, so that you can explore this in a bit more detail.
If you are in a reflective mood and want to dive a little deeper into ways that you could be a bit braver and speak up, please feel free to use any of the prompts below in your journaling:
If you could write anything at all what would it be?
What would you write if no one else was reading?
What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to write about but were too nervous to?
This reminds me of what's written on a local business's window. I forget the exact wording but it's something like "Giving someone a compliment only takes a second but can impact them for a lifetime." The gist is take the time to do a small good thing as it's ripple effects will go farther than you think.
I was just chatting about this very topic on my pod yesterday. I chatted with Cait Flanders about taking up space online and we both had similar experiences in that we needed to move something (writing form) out of the way to get creatively unstuck! My post last Thurs was that one! So relieved it’s out. ✨🙏 thanks for this Donna! 🫖✨