💬 What gives you the courage to hit publish on vulnerable work?
Our monthly(ish) community prompt
“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
—Mark Twain
Catch up on parts one, two, and three of My Most Toxic Trait . . .
In the footnotes of part three, I shared what helps drop attachment to others’ opinions when publishing creative work: “I respectfully do not care what you think.”
Fellow Dohnut shared a powerful realization in the comments: eight decades into life, he has come to see “people pleasing [as] a sin against the self.”
asks herself the following three questions before hitting publish to find solid ground regardless of what a future audience may think:
Have I been vulnerable?
Have I been generous?
Am I proud of this work?
Building on our earlier monthly(ish) Community Doh discussion threads, I’d love to hear from you in the comments:1
💬 What reminder, mantra, or practice helps you overcome fears of others’ judgment when publishing creative work?
As puts it, what helps you prioritize credible over likable?
❤️
Note: These are for paid subscribers only, so fellow Dohnuts can feel more secure in sharing, knowing the stories and comments aren’t publicly searchable. I would love for you to join us!
🍩 View earlier discussion prompts—and weigh in any time, it’s never too late!—here:
💬 Community Doh: Discussion Prompts
Every six weeks, we open up a discussion thread related to that month’s posts. These comment threads are for paid subscribers only—that means only paying doh’ers can read and reply to comments. Hopefully that gives you an extra dash of courage for sharing your story (as it does for me), knowing they aren’t Google searchable or directly out in public view.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also appreciate:
These days, in this political climate, my intuition tells me to maintain careful authenticity and compassion when I want to write something about the underpinnings and spiritual relevance of the current move toward dictatorship and fascism in our country. Am I, as a spiritual teacher, allowed to include politics in my insights? Am only supposed to be inspiring and soothing? To me, understanding the "deep WHY" of things, the evolutionary sense of what seems to me to be various forms of insanity, neurosis, ego, and emotional wounding playing out in current events—to me, this is territory that must be explored and seen through. So I edit!!
I try to imagine myself in a conservative person's body, reading what I'm writing. Is it fair? Non-polarizing to the best of my ability? Does it give helpful points of view that might clear confusion? I know there is a core "push" inside me to write of these things, and I am not one who can speak fluently about subjects that induce argument. My mind goes blank in those moments. Anyway, I get it as clear and non-egoic, non-victimy, and non-righteous as I can, then let it fly. People will see through their own filters, and it's not about me. The piece has its own life, vibration, and path.
For the last month or so I’ve been sharing actual excerpts from my 2018 journal in Notes and then compiling them into a weekly-ish digest. I’m sure 2018 me didn’t ever expect her words would be shared in public (and would be horrified at the thought). But there is something about the distance that has made it easier to share these pieces of me. And revisiting them is helping me on my current journey. I think that’s what prompted me to start this crazy experiment. Knowing they were helping me I hoped they might do the same for others.
And from a comment I got a few notes ago it appears they are.
“That resonates so much Maghan. The time perspective tells me there is a story and I can fill the gaps with my stories. The questions you ask hit hard… In a good way”
And that’s is the point for me. To write as a way to help myself and help others. So if that means sharing my personal thoughts from my journals that’s what I’ll do.