Wow. Thank you, thank you for sharing your story. This happened to me, almost word for word (but I was openly shamed for what I wrote) when I was 12. I carry the shame and the fear of being honest with me 30 years later. I still wrote in my teens but then a teacher criticized/belittled my writing at uni and I gave it up for decades, despite writing being my greatest love and the thing I was best at growing up. I’ve never heard someone describe my experience so directly like this. I am the woman in her 40s picking up the pen for the first time in 30 years. She is me.
Dear Bec: you very welcome, and please know that my heart breaks and rejoices at the same time for you! I'm so sorry about your experience with the teacher and that you moved away from your love because of that! And at the same time, I'm so happy and inspired that you are back - with a pen in hand and writing and loving writing again! Cheering us in our new love affair and many, many pages written! M
Your candid advice to parents is beautiful and wise. I really felt this piece. Though I don't believe anyone read my adolescent diary, I was shamed for expressing my feelings and how I explored who I might become: the clothes I wore, the friends I chose. * This judgement lingers still and too often keeps me from the page. I bet this rings true for many women. Thank you for naming it. ❤️☘️
Dear Catherine: I'm so glad that it resonated with you! and that you identified for yourself the judgment that lingers and keeps you from the page. Let's keep writing and let's keep sharing. Cheering us both on, M!
Magdalena, your perspective here is illuminating. I have my own version of my diary being read and used against me by my mother, so this struck a deep chord.
What stood out most is your insight about the methods. You realized that all the writing practices in the world are merely "managing the symptom" if your nervous system is still inhabiting the old story (that honesty=liability).
In my work, I see this exact pattern with high-achievers. They spend decades trapped on what I call the Medical Merry-Go-Round—trying to manage their physical or emotional pain with endless treatments, while completely ignoring the pain story that's driving it. They know the pain is there, but they don't know how to actually dissolve the story at the root.
When you wrote and burned that letter, you didn't just cope with the shame—you dissolved the story at its source. You took what I call the Pain Story Exit Ramp.
It’s a rare gift to articulate the difference between managing a symptom and true story dissolution so clearly. I'm so glad you found your exit and picked up the pen again, as did I.
I discovered (too late, actually) that having a memoir published is like standing outside on a cold day in your underwear. I didn't feel that way when I was writing it. It was just what happened to me, why I did what I did, and here--- here's what I learned. But now that the book is almost ready for publication (people might read it!!) I felt guilt. Guilt that I had said some unflattering things about my parents, both of whom loved me unconditionally, but a bit too much. My urge to get away, and be my own person, and all the pitfalls that came with that. My "getting away" involved the types of things my mother would have warned me about if she had any idea I would do such stupid things. As I say in my book, I had the kind of adventures that would scare your mother.
Dearest Rose: WOW! I love how you described your experience: standing outside on a cold day in underwear = publishing memoir! It's so viivid, and so accurate, and so elegant ant the same time! And yes, guilt, shame, somehow show up before, during and after writing, publishing! And it take immense amount of courage to keep going! So cheers to writing, and journaling and scipting and cheers to standing outside on a cold day in out underwear's!
You're so right, Magdalena, and I'm so glad to have read this today. I write a lot about shame, and where it starts. My mother read my journal, aged 14. In it, I wrote about a 24-year-old man who was 'doing things' to me. My mother's response, 'Do you not know your Father is a church deacon?' I learned to stay silent, and it's taken me half a century to write my truth. Fifty years of stuffing down pain. I still write the personal behind a paywall - it makes me feel safer.
Dear Sue: what a powerful and inspiring journey and what a huge win over the past! going back to university at 58 and pursuing creative writing is a huge accomplishments! congratulations! and to top it you've got the experience of freedom! Truly exceptional!
Ooof. Such a powerful read. This happened to me as both a very young girl (it was snatched and reread mockingly to me) and later as a teen - for the “safety” reasons you experienced. And it stopped me from journalling for many years too. I suspect there’s still a part even now that censors…your words to parents/caregivers…so beautiful and who knows what precious, sensitive, tender interior world it might protect.
Dear Suzy: thank you for your open and honest share, and I'm so impressed that you recognize that even not there might a part of you that censors yourself! I hope you give it a try to create few pieces that are less censored and share with the world. Cheering you on, M
Hey m’lady….I’ve been wanting to circle back to your lovely reply for weeks and give it the time it deserves. Thank you!✨🪄🤍
The journal incidents were only part of the story. I also grew up in a high-control religious environment where belonging often felt tied to expressing the “right” thoughts and feelings. It took me a long time to realise how deeply that shaped my relationship with my own voice. It will be a life-long journey of reclaiming and I like to think every time I show up for myself, whether guiding a tour or meditation, hosting a workshop and publishing here is a little act of returning to myself.
But oh what a journey, hey? Brutal, beautiful, exquisite, excruciating and everything in between!
Thank you for cheering me on. It genuinely means a lot. ❤️
Dear Suzy: thank you so much for sharing so powerfully! and you said it so perfectly:"what a journey, hey? Brutal, beautiful, exquisite, excruciating and everything in between!" - I think/feel that it's just like that for oh so many of us! hence, sharing openly and honestly helps with loosening the grip, releasing and witnessing ourselves and others healing. Much love! M
I honestly think that’s one of the greatest gifts of honest writing, right? Someone shares their story and suddenly a hundred people all whisper, “Ooof… me too.”
It takes layers and layers of courage to express ourselves fully, imperfectly, awkwardly, vulnerably and all. Which is why your piece felt so important. It wasn’t just about a diary being read, hey? It was about the ways we learn to censor, edit and protect our inner worlds.
Every honest story creates a little more room for everyone else to breathe.
Thank you for that beautiful collective exhale. 🥹✨
Dear Suzy: WOW! thank you for your kind, generous and supportive words! I love how you said "Every honest story creates a little more room for everyone else to breathe." - I never though about it this way - but you are so right and I so love it! thank you for this gift!
Thank you for this. What stopped me writing was actually a writing assignment for school that my mother made me rewrite because she didn’t like the way I described a family gathering. I felt punished for having an opinion and being honest about my feelings, part of a larger pattern/dynamic. It took me decades to feel comfortable sharing my thoughts and feelings, written or otherwise. I’m on the verge of putting my story out there in order to help others and I’m still hesitating, still worried about how it may be perceived. But in my journal I feel free to vent, to examine, to reflect, to cherish, and to work out life’s crunchier problems. It’s definitely important to have a safe outlet.
Dear Ekaterina: thank you so much for sharing from your heart! I do hope that you share your journey and your work! The world needs various voices and experiences! I'm cheering you on and can't wait to read your work! M
It’s such a big step to put yourself out there, isn’t it, and trusting the world that it will react to you kindly? I haven’t made the same experience as you, but my childhood taught me to be hyper-aware of my surroundings and to constantly monitor and adjust according to it. It’s a pattern that lives in my nervous system and that I’m learning to slowly let go of. Writing is my chance to explore how deep this is rooted within me and to help other people recognize their own patterns.
Dear Julius: thank you for your supportive words and your open and honest share! You are so right that the patterns live in our nervous systems and we get to explore it via writing!
I love this, thank you. My (lovely) mam was a bit of a snooper. I remember the feeling of needing privacy. Now I have two daughters of my own I am very respectful of their privacy and I've also encouraged them to journal. And I don't snoop. However they snoop on each other 😅
Dear Jackie: thank you so much for your kind words of support! and the humorous reprieve of your daughters snooping on each other :-) I'm sure they have un-spoken agreement on that! I truly acknowledge you for respecting their privacy! Well done!
You have distilled your emotional experience into something way deeper. Something somatic.
Something visceral.
It spoke to my own experiences of betrayals from people I implicitly trusted. Once that trust is broken, I don't know that it can ever really be recovered. It has me feeling shattered in many ways. I know I carry a lot of anger about it, and it is so buried in my subconscious, I have no idea how to deal with it.
It feels outside the realm of language.
I really look forward to reading what others have to say on this subject. I'm hoping for an opening. AND...I'll do as you suggest and continue to write!
Dear Tom: than you for your kind and supportive words and for sharing your experiences so powerfully! Yes, once trust is broken it is a very challenging to rebuild it and like you mentioned, processing these emotions via writing can be immensely helpful!
Wow. Thank you, thank you for sharing your story. This happened to me, almost word for word (but I was openly shamed for what I wrote) when I was 12. I carry the shame and the fear of being honest with me 30 years later. I still wrote in my teens but then a teacher criticized/belittled my writing at uni and I gave it up for decades, despite writing being my greatest love and the thing I was best at growing up. I’ve never heard someone describe my experience so directly like this. I am the woman in her 40s picking up the pen for the first time in 30 years. She is me.
Dear Bec: you very welcome, and please know that my heart breaks and rejoices at the same time for you! I'm so sorry about your experience with the teacher and that you moved away from your love because of that! And at the same time, I'm so happy and inspired that you are back - with a pen in hand and writing and loving writing again! Cheering us in our new love affair and many, many pages written! M
Yes! It’s so scary to go back but I know it will be absolutely worth it ❤️❤️
Your candid advice to parents is beautiful and wise. I really felt this piece. Though I don't believe anyone read my adolescent diary, I was shamed for expressing my feelings and how I explored who I might become: the clothes I wore, the friends I chose. * This judgement lingers still and too often keeps me from the page. I bet this rings true for many women. Thank you for naming it. ❤️☘️
Dear Catherine: I'm so glad that it resonated with you! and that you identified for yourself the judgment that lingers and keeps you from the page. Let's keep writing and let's keep sharing. Cheering us both on, M!
Magdalena, your perspective here is illuminating. I have my own version of my diary being read and used against me by my mother, so this struck a deep chord.
What stood out most is your insight about the methods. You realized that all the writing practices in the world are merely "managing the symptom" if your nervous system is still inhabiting the old story (that honesty=liability).
In my work, I see this exact pattern with high-achievers. They spend decades trapped on what I call the Medical Merry-Go-Round—trying to manage their physical or emotional pain with endless treatments, while completely ignoring the pain story that's driving it. They know the pain is there, but they don't know how to actually dissolve the story at the root.
When you wrote and burned that letter, you didn't just cope with the shame—you dissolved the story at its source. You took what I call the Pain Story Exit Ramp.
It’s a rare gift to articulate the difference between managing a symptom and true story dissolution so clearly. I'm so glad you found your exit and picked up the pen again, as did I.
I discovered (too late, actually) that having a memoir published is like standing outside on a cold day in your underwear. I didn't feel that way when I was writing it. It was just what happened to me, why I did what I did, and here--- here's what I learned. But now that the book is almost ready for publication (people might read it!!) I felt guilt. Guilt that I had said some unflattering things about my parents, both of whom loved me unconditionally, but a bit too much. My urge to get away, and be my own person, and all the pitfalls that came with that. My "getting away" involved the types of things my mother would have warned me about if she had any idea I would do such stupid things. As I say in my book, I had the kind of adventures that would scare your mother.
Dearest Rose: WOW! I love how you described your experience: standing outside on a cold day in underwear = publishing memoir! It's so viivid, and so accurate, and so elegant ant the same time! And yes, guilt, shame, somehow show up before, during and after writing, publishing! And it take immense amount of courage to keep going! So cheers to writing, and journaling and scipting and cheers to standing outside on a cold day in out underwear's!
Thanks Magdelena. Also standing outside in our underwear, while people walk by and look at you! (But that might be a bit melodramatic.)
LOL - sure! why NOT!!!
I love your spirit, Rose!
You're so right, Magdalena, and I'm so glad to have read this today. I write a lot about shame, and where it starts. My mother read my journal, aged 14. In it, I wrote about a 24-year-old man who was 'doing things' to me. My mother's response, 'Do you not know your Father is a church deacon?' I learned to stay silent, and it's taken me half a century to write my truth. Fifty years of stuffing down pain. I still write the personal behind a paywall - it makes me feel safer.
That is horrible!
Oh, it got worse. But at 57 I had therapy and at 58 went to university to do creative writing, and now, I feel free!
Dear Sue: what a powerful and inspiring journey and what a huge win over the past! going back to university at 58 and pursuing creative writing is a huge accomplishments! congratulations! and to top it you've got the experience of freedom! Truly exceptional!
Ooof. Such a powerful read. This happened to me as both a very young girl (it was snatched and reread mockingly to me) and later as a teen - for the “safety” reasons you experienced. And it stopped me from journalling for many years too. I suspect there’s still a part even now that censors…your words to parents/caregivers…so beautiful and who knows what precious, sensitive, tender interior world it might protect.
Dear Suzy: thank you for your open and honest share, and I'm so impressed that you recognize that even not there might a part of you that censors yourself! I hope you give it a try to create few pieces that are less censored and share with the world. Cheering you on, M
Hey m’lady….I’ve been wanting to circle back to your lovely reply for weeks and give it the time it deserves. Thank you!✨🪄🤍
The journal incidents were only part of the story. I also grew up in a high-control religious environment where belonging often felt tied to expressing the “right” thoughts and feelings. It took me a long time to realise how deeply that shaped my relationship with my own voice. It will be a life-long journey of reclaiming and I like to think every time I show up for myself, whether guiding a tour or meditation, hosting a workshop and publishing here is a little act of returning to myself.
But oh what a journey, hey? Brutal, beautiful, exquisite, excruciating and everything in between!
Thank you for cheering me on. It genuinely means a lot. ❤️
Dear Suzy: thank you so much for sharing so powerfully! and you said it so perfectly:"what a journey, hey? Brutal, beautiful, exquisite, excruciating and everything in between!" - I think/feel that it's just like that for oh so many of us! hence, sharing openly and honestly helps with loosening the grip, releasing and witnessing ourselves and others healing. Much love! M
Magdalena, this is so beautifully put. ❤️
I honestly think that’s one of the greatest gifts of honest writing, right? Someone shares their story and suddenly a hundred people all whisper, “Ooof… me too.”
It takes layers and layers of courage to express ourselves fully, imperfectly, awkwardly, vulnerably and all. Which is why your piece felt so important. It wasn’t just about a diary being read, hey? It was about the ways we learn to censor, edit and protect our inner worlds.
Every honest story creates a little more room for everyone else to breathe.
Thank you for that beautiful collective exhale. 🥹✨
Dear Suzy: WOW! thank you for your kind, generous and supportive words! I love how you said "Every honest story creates a little more room for everyone else to breathe." - I never though about it this way - but you are so right and I so love it! thank you for this gift!
Girl, I see you.
Thank you so much Kasia!
Thank you for this. What stopped me writing was actually a writing assignment for school that my mother made me rewrite because she didn’t like the way I described a family gathering. I felt punished for having an opinion and being honest about my feelings, part of a larger pattern/dynamic. It took me decades to feel comfortable sharing my thoughts and feelings, written or otherwise. I’m on the verge of putting my story out there in order to help others and I’m still hesitating, still worried about how it may be perceived. But in my journal I feel free to vent, to examine, to reflect, to cherish, and to work out life’s crunchier problems. It’s definitely important to have a safe outlet.
Dear Ekaterina: thank you so much for sharing from your heart! I do hope that you share your journey and your work! The world needs various voices and experiences! I'm cheering you on and can't wait to read your work! M
Thank you so much. It’s coming soon!
I did not have this happen but I can so totally feel the tension in my gut and body. Thanks for sharing your courage.
Dear Real Life: Thank you so much for you kind and supportive words! Cheering all of us in rebuilding self-trust!
My mom did the same in various ways.
Only she wasn’t at all subtle in her accusations and shame deployment.
Destroyed my trust in her.
This piece dealt with the betrayal of it gently but firmly and with insight others can take away.
Thank you.
Dear Andrea, thank you so much for your kind words of support! I'm so glad that this resonated with you! Cheering all of us in restoring trust!
It’s such a big step to put yourself out there, isn’t it, and trusting the world that it will react to you kindly? I haven’t made the same experience as you, but my childhood taught me to be hyper-aware of my surroundings and to constantly monitor and adjust according to it. It’s a pattern that lives in my nervous system and that I’m learning to slowly let go of. Writing is my chance to explore how deep this is rooted within me and to help other people recognize their own patterns.
Dear Julius: thank you for your supportive words and your open and honest share! You are so right that the patterns live in our nervous systems and we get to explore it via writing!
Welcome back to your 17 year old self Magdelena! What a joy you've found your way back. As well as the way you've been doing it.
Dear Wilco: thank you! You are so sweet and yes, cheers to finding way back to being 17 year old!
Great and touching story. Thanks. Blue 💙
Dear Blue: Thank you for your kind and supportive words! Appreciate you!
I love this, thank you. My (lovely) mam was a bit of a snooper. I remember the feeling of needing privacy. Now I have two daughters of my own I am very respectful of their privacy and I've also encouraged them to journal. And I don't snoop. However they snoop on each other 😅
Dear Jackie: thank you so much for your kind words of support! and the humorous reprieve of your daughters snooping on each other :-) I'm sure they have un-spoken agreement on that! I truly acknowledge you for respecting their privacy! Well done!
Wow...this is really powerful.
You have distilled your emotional experience into something way deeper. Something somatic.
Something visceral.
It spoke to my own experiences of betrayals from people I implicitly trusted. Once that trust is broken, I don't know that it can ever really be recovered. It has me feeling shattered in many ways. I know I carry a lot of anger about it, and it is so buried in my subconscious, I have no idea how to deal with it.
It feels outside the realm of language.
I really look forward to reading what others have to say on this subject. I'm hoping for an opening. AND...I'll do as you suggest and continue to write!
Dear Tom: than you for your kind and supportive words and for sharing your experiences so powerfully! Yes, once trust is broken it is a very challenging to rebuild it and like you mentioned, processing these emotions via writing can be immensely helpful!
Beautifully written. Thank you.
Dear Elspeth: thank you so much for your kind and supportive words! Greatly appreciate you!