Speaking personal truth

These writings are dedicated to survivors.

It wasn’t until this past year that I truly appreciated the power and importance of sharing human experiences and using one's voice. I finally understand why I’ve been encouraged to journal for so long, I just wasn’t ready until now. With new understanding about the power of sharing, I now have purpose for doing so. I have purpose because I know how powerful it is to hear someone else’s journey while you are stumbling along your own. To connect to their pain, see the dysfunctional patterns, learn from the mistakes, missteps, miscalculations, and triumphs. There is so much growth and learning in all those stories, and the self-insight that is gained from processing them. But most importantly, and what primarily drives my motivation for sharing, is for survivors to hear the most profound message that you can hear while attempting that path, especially when it brings you to your knees. And that message is this. . .

You are not alone.

I have spent a lifetime practicing the art of navigating through the ripples of trauma. I’ve had years of practice, experiences, failures, successes. I’ve used my fear and anxiety to drive what I call versions of, “external success”. I use the word "external" for very intentional reasons. The external part is what is visible to the outside world. It is superficial precisely how oxford language defines the word, “existing or occurring at or on the surface”. It is the part that people see, the parts we show them, and the interpretations that they make from those intersections. It only goes 1 layer deep. Internally however, is an entirely different story. It is also where true purpose, peace and love are found.

I am not amazing, nor brilliant, nor perfect, nor pedigreed, nor even particularly remarkable. I am deeply flawed, make mistakes, experience failures, and have my own internal dysfunctions. I am human. The more I learn and grow, the more I realize I have yet to.

What I am, is fortunate, very fortunate. It is the people around me, the people that I intersect with at pivotal times, the people that support me, that I learn critical lessons from, and that remind me time and time again, that while all the above things may be true, I am also not alone. And that gives me purpose.

It gives purpose because I realize how much the people around me have lifted, carried and supported me, and whose collective efforts have generated the life I am in today. Much more so than I could have ever done by myself. I am not alone, I can’t do it alone (or at least not very well), and I don’t have to. In fact, if I try, I rob myself and the boys of a better life, of positive experiences, and more love. The things that people look at and congratulate me as personal accomplishment, I didn’t really achieve. Not alone anyways. I might be the singer in my life, but the band is what makes incredible music.

So, to those of you out there stumbling along your own path (and sometimes off of it), I am sharing these for you. I thank you for that gift. It is my hope that you will see my flaws, see my scars, hear the struggles, and realize that we are not so different in our fundamental human experience. And that if I can navigate through, you can too. If I can stumble, break, bleed, cry, and stand back up, you can too. If I can crawl back over the top of the cliff I jumped off of, you can too. In fact. . .

You already have.