Showing My True Face
This past Saturday, I had a writing workshop with a group I have been going to since the beginning of the year. We had a wonderful topic, and we even explored writing personal narratives (which is naturally my strongest and preferred style of writing). The topic of the workshop was “being in thrall to.” The definition of Thrall is to be morally bound, enchanted, or inslaved to.
I enjoyed writing this so much that I decided to put it into this week’s blog. It flows well with the character of my blogs, vulnerability through triumphs, honest self-reflections, spiritual revelations, and all things in between.
I always have a goal going into the workshop to share at least one piece of my work. I am proud to say I shared two confidently. When we got to personal narrative, which I naturally go into, tender and deeply introspective, I began to cry. As I was reading, I felt the emotions builing while getting to the most sensitive part of my writing.
Naturally, I don’t share much of what sits in my heart, or at least not the things that are personal and generational. Maybe because I am like a lake. Mesmerizing and tempting. You can get to know me, only as far as you decide to explore. I can be shallow for the people who only wish to dip their feet in. I can also be as deep as an ocean, but it is up to you to determine if you can swim in my wisdom and stories.
Here is my personal narrative from this week’s topic,
In Thrall: The place that raised me, the place that hurt me.
The place that raised, nurtured, and poured into me turned out to be that which bound me to a spirit and identity of self-neglect, shrinking, and settling. It was like a covenant to my lower self. I grew up watching the women in my family forget themselves and their dreams, and try to make sense of it by saying, “That’s just the way it is.”
So who am I to have a dream? To leave the small town of my family and pursue my calling. Why do I, or should I, be bound to this guilt for standing up and saying, “no more”?
I want more for me.
I do not wish to let life shape me; instead, I wish to shape my life. I wish to speak up, to have demands, boundaries, and desires. I do not wish to bow to and serve my insecurities or to stay in the safety of the box people put me in. I do not find it safer for me to keep quiet and lose my vibrance. What if I do want to disrupt the peace? The peace that is only peaceful at the cost of my suffering, silence, and forgotten dreams.
I remember my grandmother telling me, “Sometimes it is best to stay silent, to keep the peace.” I went through 32 years of my life thinking it to be true. I have seen what this spirit of silence does to the people who take its poison, believing it to be medicine. It kills from the inside out. It infuriates the spirit, slowly dimming your light until you question if you ever really had a light at all. And maybe the darkness is safer because the light may expose all that we have hidden. At some point, we will have to face the things we put on hold or convinced ourselves we didn’t want, when we really did. Maybe the pain of what we've given up for silence would be just too unbearable to face.
Who am I without my voice? I am meant to take up space. It is not in my calling to make people comfortable with my light.
I have said it before, and I say it once more, until it shakes the kingdom of darkness: “What a gift it is for it to come to me, but it ends with me.” How great a story it is to tell my kindred we have a different story now. How blessed will my children’s children be to know my triumph and testimony.
You see, I view life as a storybook. It is up to us if we wish to finish the chapter and walk into the next. A blessing it is for us to be the writer, reader, and character. I once had a revelation come to me that said, “It’s all on purpose.” And that I do believe; that my victory has already been written.
April 27th, 2026.
