Are You Peeking Out From Behind the Curtain?
By: Lorelle VanFossen
Tags: bloggers block, courage, fear, fear of publishing, hiding, procrastination, publishing, self-worth, writers block, wysiwyg
Are you standing behind the curtain peeking out?
I’ve been writing, journaling, and publishing online since prior to 1993. You’d think that I’d have all the courage I needed to publish the next post. Most of the time I do, but there are many times when I can’t.
Not won’t. Can’t.
It isn’t a can’t as in not able, not ready, not used to the process. Sometimes the publish button terrifies me. It’s intimidating.
After a week of such self-inflicted agony, my husband asked me what I was afraid of. My head raced around to all corners and found too many words to describe my pain and resistance. I sought the in between places, the safer places of my mind, but conflict raged everywhere.
What was I afraid of? The words bubbled from the depths of my heart not my head.
“I’m afraid of being seen.”
It’s easy to hide behind the blog, to let the words and images do an entertaining dance, a bit of leg, tiny smile, a flash of the eye before the veil cascades back down revealing all. Blogging is in many ways the modern form of burlesque. A strip tease that keeps the audience wanting more, desperately wanting more, while never getting the whole package, just the bits and pieces the artist reveals in the tease.
Blogging is showmanship at its best.
Yet, there comes times when the post behind the publish button shows a bit more than we might wish to reveal, a little too much flesh, a grin a little too toothy, a scar or wound exposed.
We pull back, not willing to risk that much. Do we need to? Should we expose ourselves to the world?
“Is that the worst that could happen?”
Ah, good question. Is being seen for who I am, revealing an essence of my truth, the worst?
Reality returns to balance with the help of my best friend and lover.
No, being seen isn’t the worst thing that could happen. Sometimes the truth needs to step out from behind the curtain to reveal itself in all its warts.
Why?
Because others have warts, too. We all have skin we wish to not reveal, grins a little too toothy, scars, wounds, we all share these things.
It’s the sharing that matters. By sharing, we share the stage with others.
That’s the definition of web publishing and social media. It’s life shared.
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