Don’t Judge Your Sacred Story
Your sacred story is the meaning that is living itself out through you every day.
One of the things I’ve learned about writing is that you can’t be the judge of your own writing. Things that you think are boring, pedestrian, mundane or “bad” often are the things that others respond to and feel the most power from.
Just the other day I posted a story on Medium (click here if you’d like to read it) as part of the challenge I was doing to post every day for a 100 days for the publication, 100 Naked Words. It was late and I didn’t want to write. I was throwing a bit of a fit about it, but forced myself to write anyway.
When I was done, my spouse said, “How was it? Don’t you feel better now?” And I said, “No! I feel awful. I don’t even know what I wrote. It doesn’t make sense and it sucks!” I went to bed feeling terrible and bad about myself as a writer. Turns out that piece got more claps than any other I’d written to that point. It is now my third most popular piece. I couldn’t believe it.
This kind of thing can be startling because we get accustomed to dismissing things that are familiar to us. They are familiar for a reason — they are the continuous expression of your life’s sacred story.
Your sacred story is the meaning that is living itself out through you every day. It is the “destiny hidden within your soul from the beginning” as writer and mythologist, Michael Meade, says. And it is the twists of fate and circumstance that bring that destiny, and the words to describe it, to the surface.
Your sacred story is the alive meeting ground where that destiny and the particular joys, sorrows, wins and loses of your life converge and tell a human, yet universal story.
Your sacred story is not familiar to others because it is yours. It touches them because you’ve worn it well (even if you get tired of it). We covet what we don’t have. It’s real and it reminds them of their own sacred story. But you don’t know that until you write and share it and keep writing and keep sharing it. What feels like the same, old, tired words or story to you holds within it insights that others need and want and can’t find anywhere else.
Having other people be moved by the familiar parts of your sacred story is what renews your own connection to it. It renews your faith and trust in your own life — what it ALREADY is and has been. In this way, you come home.
Writing is not simply putting words to paper. It is showing up, belonging, and coming home to your life fully. It is saying, I matter enough, I’m valuable enough to write my story down. And in order to do that, you actually have to put words to paper and then take the brave step of sharing it with others.
Click here to get your get your One Word Can Set You Free Guide as my gift to you, so you can write your sacred story and start sharing it. The world is waiting for your words.
