The agony (and ecstasy) of sharing your work publicly

Self-doubt, imposter syndrome and the journey of writing

Image: Retrosupply on Unsplash

During my training as a clinical psychologist, I was required to video-record client sessions to be critiqued by my supervisors and tutors. Later, during yoga teacher training, there was a similar requirement to teach classes in front of peers and teachers and be critiqued prior to certification. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how utterly daunting and excruciating both of those experiences were. I would tend to have a full sleepless night before each, meaning that I then had to show up and ‘perform’ in a state of sleep-deprived, nauseous, brain fog – far from my best. I somehow managed to survive and graduate, and one of the nice things about being professionally qualified and experienced is that this kind of public scrutiny of my work is no longer required. The world of the therapy room is very private, with the exchanges that take place only witnessed by me and my clients and the four walls of the room. My nervous system relaxes in this safety and privacy and enables my best work to flow.

Writing here on Substack is a whole different story. Unless you are just writing for yourself, writing requires putting work out for public consumption and even having to promote it and encourage people to read – from friends and family, to colleagues and peers, and even perfect strangers. It requires putting yourself out there in the public arena for your thoughts and words to potentially be consumed, judged, critiqued, compared or – worst of all - ignored. And once it is out there, there are a whole page of statistics on which you can hang your self-worth – numbers of views, likes, comments, shares, subscribers.

I’ve worn a cloak of invisibility for much of my life, a safety mechanism where, if I stay on the side-lines and fly under the radar, I can observe the world without being observed myself and therefore attempt to dodge the bullets of criticism and judgement. Putting work out into the public arena sometimes feels akin to standing naked in the firing line and inviting people to watch (OK, perhaps not completely naked, I’m not baring my entire soul here, but you get my point). Hats off to people who do this much more overtly in the world of television and online media. At least here there is a keyboard and a screen to hide behind when it feels excruciating.

There’s a whole cast of internal characters that join the party when we create something and share our work with the world. In the language of Internal Family Systems (IFS), these are known as our internal ‘parts’. They may include our creative, inspired or playful parts, as well as parts like anxiety, fear, shame, the inner critic and the inner perfectionist. Different voices dominate at different times and sometimes they can be so loud they drown out the others, making us want to run for the hills or hide in a cave. Recognising them as parts and knowing they come and go is hugely helpful. We can also engage with these parts and ask them about their concerns. Once they feel heard and acknowledged they are often willing to soften. Our vulnerable parts are not trying to sabotage things for us. Their role is to try to protect us from failure, shame, rejection and humiliation, but they can sometimes be a little over-zealous in their quest for safety, over-estimating the level of threat and under-estimating our resources.

Fear tends to accompany us on any new venture, especially one with an uncertain outcome (which, let’s face it, is most things in life). Elizabeth Gilbert expresses this so well as she talks about the creative process in her book ‘Big Magic’:

‘Your fear – programmed by evolution to be hypervigilant and insanely overprotective – will always assume that any uncertain outcome is destined to end in a bloody, horrible death.’

Our psyche is programmed to value staying alive above all else, so it makes sense that the alarm system is loud.

It helps to know we’re not alone in this. Many years of conversations with people in the therapy room have taught me that these struggles are almost universal. Thankfully, we now have words and phrases in the psychological lexicon such as ‘imposter syndrome’ and ‘vulnerability hangover’ that describe exactly these experiences. Researcher and writer Brené Brown has brought shame and vulnerability out of the closet and into the public eye and nudged it towards acceptable dinner-table conversation.

It’s scary and vulnerable stepping into new territory, but this is exactly where the growth edge is. If we stay in our comfort zone, we may feel safer but we don’t get to grow, expand, have adventures or a rich and interesting life. We also don’t get to see what’s possible and to hear the positive feedback and resonance that may be out there. In facing what we fear and discovering we can survive, whether it succeeds or fails, we get to grow stronger through the experience. Eventually over time we can become much more desensitised to the agonising pain of vulnerability and our anxious parts can start to trust that it’s going to be OK.

I’m embracing the writing and sharing as a kind of spiritual practice - a practice in staying anchored in myself, staying true to the work and the words that want to come through, rather than trying to bend and shapeshift to my perception of other people’s expectations. A practice in non-attachment. Writing, sharing, letting it go and moving on to the next. A practice in showing up and trusting in who I am, that I have something unique and valuable to offer. And a practice in commitment, to keep doing the work whether the validation comes or not.

I find it helps to put something out on a day when I’m busy with other things and then just not look at the numbers. My job is to show up for the writing, to create something, polish and shape it into the best it can be, and then to let it go. I’m trying to remind my anxious parts that what happens to it after it leaves my keyboard is really none of my business.

I know from past experience that vulnerability can create connection, intimacy and community. I also know that taking risks is a necessary part of whole-hearted living. And I’m learning that crafting words and sharing them with others can be creative, enlivening and a whole lot of fun, especially if I don’t take it too seriously. I’m enjoying watching a little community take shape in this tiny corner of the internet - Substack tells me I now have subscribers in 16 different countries, which simply blows my mind.

---

So tell me, what scary, vulnerable things are taking you to your growth edges at the moment? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below (and I’d love to hear where you’re reading from!) You can also help support my writing by sharing this post with others, and subscribing to The Therapy Room.