I write a lot. Daily. It is a moving, healing grace for me as I start my days. I am blogging, writing essays, and working slowly on my first book. And I often questioned why I needed to write so much from an early age. My deep desire to connect with others arose in that inquiry. Being "on the spectrum" was always hard to communicate through spoken words, so writing gave me the safe outlet I needed. Well, I thought it was safe...
For years, I was terrified to share my writings. Who will read? Is there any actual value in what I write? What if people do not like my writing? Also, as an avid reader and a major in philosophy, I always found "other writers" writings much better than mine.
There were many layers of shame, unworthiness, and fear of breaking into a place of deep vulnerability. There was a long journey from Neurodiversity acceptance to a Writer's Healing... Like any artist, I see my writing as a naked photo of myself and more vulnerability from my heart and soul.
As someone who has dealt with the shame of neurodiversity, often misunderstood, still to this day, and also bullied at school for my nerdiness, the opinion of "others" was never always safe nor kind, and created a long-term silent depression that took me years to understand and live peacefully with. No one knew about those terrifying experiences until I could write about them. No spoken word would come out, but the pages were flooded with words...
I often acknowledge, as I see it in full display daily, the violence of the world for those who are different, misunderstood, and not conforming. We are in the epic time of individualism where every opinion is legions, speaking is loud, but listening without an immediate thought is rarely present. In collective trauma, we cannot hear with our hearts but only see the world and the words through the lenses of an often dysregulated nervous system.
When I started to share my writings, the silence of my "friends" never supporting my writing was intimidating and hurtful. This writing process asked me to go deeper into my healing and what was projected, seen, received, and perceived so I could get more free into my weaving of words. But there were also the "silent words" ushered to others, making fun of my writings. Indeed, those hurt more; I am deeply human, after all. I felt disappointed and betrayed.
It is when I often remember to keep daring greatly. So, I kept writing and sharing again and again. In the beautiful words of Brene Brown: "If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their own lives but will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgment at those of us trying to dare greatly. Their only contributions are criticism, cynicism, and fear-mongering. If you're criticizing from a place where you're not also putting yourself on the line, I'm not interested in your feedback."
Over the years, I learned to go beyond any desire for feedback and could finally write from a place of truth beyond any expectations from myself and others. It was also the process of finding my authentic voice, freed from the conditioning and expectations of the world, and seeing what my heart wanted to truly see beyond my mind's narrow and robust filters.
It was when some magical messages came to me from the four corners of the earth. People I had never met and did not know were starting to reach out. And their messages, as they continue to come, really shifted how I related to my writing. What they were sharing was how my words, this one phrase they quoted, changed their life, took them out of depression, healed their pain, helped them battle depression, made them feel seen, cured their addiction, repaired their broken heart, soothe their grief, made them understand their mind, made them feel normal when the whole world rejected them, and so much more...
There were so many messages of kindness and love from the strangers who became my guiding light and most profound proof that the words in my heart had meaning, power, and deep value not only for me but for a few others scattered in faraway lands in lives there were now sharing with me. The words were like the spider web, catching the vibrations and callings of those in need while allowing me to connect beyond myself to the power of words and the great web of humanity.
And yet, to this day, when I write, I only write for that one person who might need to read those words. One is enough; one is everything.
As I started to delve more over the past 20 years into ancient wisdom, time with elders, ceremonies, and the ancient healing arts of plants, rituals, and shamanism, I realized my song, my most profound medicine, was very much in the depth of my words.
Word not only as the messengers of my love and truth but words as vibrational sentient beings who travel in the deepest part of the soul, magicians, and surgeons of life, true angels in disguise who, once freed from my inner world, could travel in unknown places, do their work, without my control or perception of them.
I have always had a hard time singing for those who know me. For various reasons, there is still a blockage to this day, and despite being deeply aware of it, the resistance and intense emotional response when asked to do so is constantly shaking me to my core. In a ceremony this past year, I asked the master plant, "Why? Why cannot I sing?." Her answer was profound and direct: "You sing through your writing; you are an amazing singer." This answer struck me profoundly and opened a deeper acceptance of my gifts.
Why am I sharing all this with you? I am sharing this journey of personal discovery, healing, and transformation in the deep desire and hope that this will touch your soul so profoundly that whatever medicine you carry, art that wants to be birthed will open the gateway of Creation in you. You will trust to drop the resistance, break the spells of shame and unworthiness, and let your gift be witnessed and welcomed into this world. I sincerely pray for this.
Without freeing the gifts sent from heaven to your soul, we will miss the most unique and beautiful piece of this puzzle of humanity we are building together. So please join me... join the symphony of life. Create. Share.
Do not control the desire to create; this is the core of life's desires.
Constant re-creation. Constant expansion. Constant connection.
And I want you to know that in me, your gift will always be received with gratitude, blessings, and love.
Dare greatly,
Angell Deer
