Did anyone conduct last week’s exercise?
Here, I challenged you to share with someone, what you fear the most as a writer. Then journal how you felt before you shared, while you shared, and after you shared.
I conducted this exercise on last Tuesday by sharing on Facebook Live. After I finished, I journaled what I felt before I conducted the video, what I felt during, then what I felt after.
Before, I was excited to be vulnerable and share with others, hoping it would help someone. But during, I was not as excited because I wasn’t as smooth in my delivery as I expected. That was partly due to someone jumping on the video then jumping off. I was focused on why they hopped off. Then afterward, I felt a little down because I rambled longer than I wanted. But I eventually overcame and felt encouraged. I can learn from this session and improve on the next Facebook Live.
Today, let’s dive into what you do after you’re vulnerable. And I’d like to hear from you. Do you feel exhilaration after you’ve had a book launch? Or as people review your book? Or when others share your book with friends?
When we share our work, we are in a sensitive, vulnerable time because we’ve opened ourselves to others. And also open our work to feedback and critique.
So, how do we protect ourselves when we experience myriad (or only a few) emotions after being vulnerable?
By practicing silence and solitude. This has helped me more than anything else. I get alone and spend time with God. So, it’s not my voice or the voice of others ringing in my heart, but his.
One time after a writer’s critique, I came home ready to quit writing. Someone had given me a “harsh” critique. They made a blanket statement about an aspect of my writing that I was embarrassed to hear. I felt like I was standing in front of an English professor telling me, “You’re not cut out to write well.” No, that’s not what the person was saying, but that’s how I felt. I laid in bed feeling exposed and devalued, as though this person had surgically removed all my passion to write. That night, I debated finding a different passion. I’d stop writing altogether, abandoning my unfinished stories.
This feedback plagued me all week, as I wrestled with self-doubt. But by the end of the week, as I laid in bed, I became still. I wasn’t necessarily asking God for clarity, but working to drown the noise in my head. After a while, strength and clarity rose within me. A strength to plow ahead, and clarity that this was an opportunity to improve not quit.
I took up the challenge. First, I had to face my reality, as I examined how I spent my time. I discovered I wasn’t investing enough in my writing. I wasn’t reading fiction regularly. I wasn’t working on crafting. I wasn’t writing as much as I was editing.
Second, I made a rough plan to improve. I dedicated more time to writing. Read fiction more. Work on crafting. Listen and read about writing. Wrote more than I edit.
Then I had a desire to show the “critic” that I’m a writer who can write well. But as I implemented the plan, I lost the desire to prove myself to others and found the passion to improve my writing for myself.
And thankfully, I saw improvement over time. This critique that felt like a sledgehammer to my writing, became an anvil forging character as it challenged me to grow.
Also, this experience was an invaluable lesson that when I’m putting my work out there for feedback, I need to cushion myself with softness and love. Get in a quiet space with God and just be.
But can we be brave enough to quiet our minds, especially when we feel attacked? Unfairly critiqued? Or having difficulty swallowing truth?
It takes practice to sit still long enough to stop the noise, especially from harsh critiques or negative feedback, and just be. And requires discipline to chase away any expectations or grandeurs to hear God from Mount Sinai. Or have him justify or defend our efforts. Instead, we sit just to be. And it doesn’t always happen on the first session or the second or the third. It is a lifestyle where we can implement the practice into our daily lives no matter the outcome.
If you want to explore practicing silence and solitude especially to help with walking through vulnerability and any side effects of sharing, I recommend a few books: (Click on the book image to access a link to purchase.)
- Invitation to Solitude and Silence by Ruth Haley Barton. Ruth found this discipline out of desperation. Although she was a believer for many years and on staff at a church, she was struggling with loving her family and practicing a lifestyle of selfless love and sacrifice. Her inward world felt chaotic, although her outward world looked idyllic. So, she dived into the practice and discovered by slowing down and drowning the noise, she could accept God’s invitation to, “Be still and know.”
“When we stop the music of our life to enter into solitude, we sit down right where we are at that moment, and that’s where we meet God. We meet God in the present delight or our present sadness. We meet God in the tears of our life and the laughter of our life. We meet God in our unnerving questions and in the answers we are celebrating. No matter where we are on any given day, when the music stops and everything gets quiet, we sit down right where we are and allow ourselves to be there with him.” (Excerpt from the book.)
2. Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster. This book dives into the spiritual disciplines for the purpose of bringing the abundance of God into our lives. He has one chapter dedicated to the Discipline of Solitude.
“Jesus calls us from loneliness to solitude. The fear of being left alone petrifies people… our fear of being alone drives us to noise and crowds….but loneliness or clatter are not our only alternatives. We can cultivate an inner solitude and silence that sets us free from loneliness and fear. Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.”
3. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero. I haven’t read this, but my husband has. This book helped him with entering into the practice of silence and solitude. This book emphasizes the value of combining walking in emotional health and gaining maturity through practicing spiritual disciplines.
“There are powerful breakthroughs that can take place deep below the surface of our lives when the riches of both contemplative spirituality and emotional health are joined together. … together they form a refining fire in which God’s love burns away that which is false and unreal, and his fierce and purifying love sets us free in the truth of Jesus.”
How about you? What’s helped you to practice just being in the midst of vulnerability? Please share in the Comments below. Thank you.
Featured Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay