Lately, sharing feels like hell.

The sheer thought of sharing these words makes my heart pound like a crazy hammer. In my head, I keep saying it’s because I’m tired and burned out and blah blah blah—but really, it’s because I’m scared.

I’m really scared.

I haven’t been feeling like my best self and it sucks—I don’t want to share that.

I really don’t want to share that.

But here’s the thing: I have to.

I wish I could share beautiful butterflies and twinkling flecks of golden stardust, but right now, all I have is the raw truth.

And the truth is, I’ve been having panic attacks lately. Intense ones where I get dizzy and nauseas and cry and shake afterwards. In itself, that hasn’t been super fun, but for me—the hardest part about panic is that I don’t want to tell anyone it’s happening. I want to hide. I feel ashamed and weak and disgusting.

I don’t want anyone to see me when I’m vulnerable and shaky.

But you know what?

Here I am, in all my vulnerable, shaky messiness.

All of my life, I’ve wished I could slap on a smile and hide the fear, hide the pain, hide it all.

I can’t do that anymore.

I don’t want to do that anymore.

Today, I bare my soul instead. I breathe and sit gently in the palms of truth. I take that exhausted smile off my face and let the tears come, like long-awaited rain. My lips hang, relaxed, not forced into any particular expression, for once. In this small act, there is great freedom.

As tears trickle down my cheeks like salty crystals, they bring wisdom—the remembrance that I’m not alone. You are not alone.

We are never alone.

You know what connects us?

The truth.

The gut-wrenching, shaky, uncomfortable, beautiful truth.

Be honest. Reach inside. Reach out. Say how you’re really doing. Say how you you’re really feeling.

Life is too short to always slap on a smile and say “I’m fine” or “I’m good.”

Bare your soul.

Go deeper. Be willing to be shaky. Be willing to be uncomfortable.

There is absolutely no shame in where you are right now.

What are you going through?

What are you struggling with?

What hurts?

Talk about it. All of it. It’s beautiful to talk about it, because talking forces us to stop hiding.

And when we stop hiding, life blooms in front of our eyes.

We bloom.

Yes.

This is what happens when we bare our souls—we happen.

We come alive, in juicy technicolor. We start living from truth, rather than fear—and fuck, if that isn’t the most beautiful thing in the world.

The more we entrust ourselves to the shaky, scary as hell, vulnerable moments, the stronger we become, the more beautiful we become.

Take the risk today, to be more honest.

Take the risk today, to be more you.

This is what happens when we bare our souls—we remember how brave we really are.

More inspiration from Sarah: 

Self Care & Courage: Face Yourself. Get Sh*t Done.

The Gift of Perspective: Why I Finally Stopped Hating my “Fat” Thighs.

Author: Sarah Harvey 

Editor: Renée Picard

Image: vanessa_gerlach at Flickr