What I Gained When I Stopped Writing on Medium

It used to be easier for me to share my innermost feelings with complete strangers.
Like you.

I would journal my thoughts — live.

Write them out for the world to see — shorting myself of that inner security.

I guess being boundary-less was my security. Until it wasn’t.

…

In a coaching session one day, as I voiced my feelings to a woman I barely knew, I got the wisdom that maybe I was robbing myself of my own emotional process by sharing feelings with an audience while they were still raw.

Something this practical stranger said to me scraped my soul with a nails down a chalkboard truth.

Maybe I was too scared to face my own truth? Somehow it felt comforting to let strangers comment on my story before I had the chance. Maybe I trusted them more than my own self?

Somehow my readers opinions and energy and highlights and claps fed my own emotional security with a temporary high.

Maybe I was numbing myself by sharing myself too openly with you.

So I stopped.

…

For two years I didn’t write. Anything.

And in that time, I was able to be my own reader and editor and publisher. My emotions and thoughts were my own.

At first it felt strange.

I felt very, very naked.

And I didn’t like it.

…

Until I did.

Until one day, a heartbreak that I’d been writing about and grieving about and holding onto resentment about just felt neutral. And I felt healed. And his name was mentioned and I felt absolutely nothing but compassion and freedom.

Then I realized that my 2 year break from Medium was the best thing I could have done for myself.

No, I didn’t make much money on my writing during that time, but I made a lot of progress on my emotional journey. And that was more valuable than the dollars and cents and claps and comments that I sacrificed.

Would I do it again?

Absolutely.

But for now, I’m writing to write. Because I love it.

And a life without love is no life at all.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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