Putting myself out there for all to see

For a while now I have been grappling with the fact that I have put my whole life onto the World Wide Web for everyone to see. I think writing about my life has been one of the scariest things that I have ever done, if not the scariest. So after many sleepless nights and wondering what possessed me to do this, I came to the realisation that it was because it was finally time to let go of that part of myself that was so closed off; and to let go of the part that doesn't let others in easily. So perhaps it is time to be who I have always been, not the person that I have always known myself to be. Lets just say that person came with a lot of baggage, but I'd like to think I have gone from three huge suit cases to a tog bag.

We are shaped by our past experiences and we often don't even realise that what happened to us becomes us,  and becomes our identities. And everything we do and every decision we make lands up being based on old, and rather dysfunctional patterns in our lives. I have first hand experience when it comes to this.

Those who know me know that I am not a very open person and I prefer to keep to myself. I always worried that if I revealed too much about myself then people would know me and then I would be vulnerable to their judgements. But I soon realised that although remaining a mystery can be endearing, it can also be very lonely.

In my life I have come across very few people who are willing to open themselves up and really connect and I have always wondered why this is. But what I came to realise was that it was me who was really closed off and that it was me who needed to open up more.  I guess we cannot expect to receive that which we cannot give.

What is unbelievable in this whole process is that since I have opened myself up more through writing, I have attracted some amazing, loving and open people into my life recently. And I have also noticed that those around me who I perceived to be closed off were actually not.

Some of us just need that push, and I am one of those people. Although it doesn’t look like it on paper, in reality, I really struggle to express how I am feeling and what I want to say often doesn't come out the right way. I  have never felt safe enough with people to open myself up and I  am not always sure how to get these millions of thoughts I have into language that can actually be understood. And like most people I am fearful of others judgements.

Sometimes I feel like my life is a paradox, because on one hand I can be the life of the party and all I want to do is be around people and on the other hand, I am acutely shy and want to be left alone. Often even the thought of leaving the house is a daunting one. So writing about my life has brought me completely out of myself,  and out of my comfort zone. Its like having jumped off a cliff and trusting that this won't lead to my untimely death.

But I am still not sure that I know this person who writes this blog, but I know that I am very intrigued by her because she seems to have a level of courage that I never knew she had and everything negative that I ever thought about her and said to her may not actually be true. I want her to be able to say the things she needs to say and write about what she knows but at the same time I want to tell her to leave all of this and go back to being how she was because it’s safer that way. This is an on-going battle in my head. 

But there is no turning back now because here I am, out in the open, and right in the middle of this overwhelming emotion called fear. Yet something is different now because through the hardships that have taken place this year and throughout my life, I have found the courage to find myself, to know myself, and to take responsibility for my life. To lay myself down before others and speak about truth, my truth,  so that whoever reads this knows that they can speak about theirs.