A Love Letter To Honor Your Voice & Capacity

In a culture that prizes constant vulnerability and turns personal narrative into performance, it’s easy to forget: your story is sacred.

" Your voice is powerful—but only when it’s rooted in self-understanding and genuine readiness."

What I want to talk about is something I rarely hear in the storytelling world: the quiet, courageous discernment it takes to know when a story is ready to be told—and why you're the one meant to tell it.

Because while I believe in the transformational power of your story, I also believe this: sharing too much before you’re ready can wound more than it heals.

So let’s talk about what it means to honor your voice. And your capacity. Two tenets foundational to my work—and maybe, the work you’re already doing within yourself.

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Honoring Your Voice

Many of my clients hesitate to speak or write because they’re afraid of getting it wrong—of upsetting someone, or being told their version of events isn't “true.”

But here’s the truth: our brains are constantly filtering the world. While we’re exposed to thousands of informational inputs each day, research suggests we can only consciously process a narrow stream—often around 50 bits per second. That limited bandwidth means every story we tell is shaped by the details our minds and bodies could hold onto in that moment.

This is why five people can live through the same experience and walk away with five different stories. That doesn’t make any one version more or less valid—it makes us all human.

Honoring your voice is about reclaiming your perspective. Owning what shaped you. Deciding how you now relate to it. It’s about retelling a story not just as something that happened to you—but as something you’ve come to understand and hold with agency.

To honor your voice means to share your lived experience—even if it doesn’t match someone else’s memory or the language your industry expects. Your story isn’t the whole story. It’s your piece. And that piece deserves dignity.

Your story is yours. And that alone makes it worth exploring.

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Honoring Your Capacity

Just as vital as honoring your voice is honoring your capacity—your readiness to tell a story from where you are now.

Before a story can be shared with impact, it must be held with care—not just intellectually, but emotionally, somatically, spiritually. Sometimes we need time to discern which parts of our stories feel safe enough to share publicly.

Years ago, I interviewed a young woman who had been sold into servitude by someone she thought she was running away with for love. She had survived incredible harm and escaped with the help of a local nonprofit. She was 19.

The organization asked to share her story for fundraising. We did everything “right”—silhouettes, voiceover, name changing, and careful editing to protect her identity. But I could see how much she was struggling with retelling us the story. Her body was collapsing, panicked and fearful. Now I know—she wasn’t just recounting what happened. She was reliving it in her body.

I asked, through a translator, if she wanted to pause. She declined. She wanted to “give back” to the organization. But afterward, I couldn’t shake the feeling: this wasn’t a fair exchange.

Her trauma was fresh. The unspoken power dynamics were real. And while the organization wasn’t trying to cause harm, no one had thought to protect her from the psychological cost of recounting this traumatic experience. That moment changed how I see story—especially for those who feel called to share in service of a cause, a mission, or a community they care deeply about.

So many of my clients carry this sense of duty: “If my story can help someone else, why wouldn't I share it?” And I get it. The desire to give back, to create change, to use your experience for good—it’s beautiful. But it must be matched with care.

Because we can override our bodies in the name of service. We can convince ourselves that our pain is justified if it helps others. But at what personal cost?

When we honor both our story and our capacity, we make space for impact and integrity. For advocacy and self-respect. We remember that nurturing our wellbeing is part of the change we’re here to make.

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The Cultural Pressure to Overshare

We live in a world that often rewards the loudest voice or rawest post as the fastest path to visibility. But this type of performance is extractive. And exposure without safety or support isn’t liberation—it’s a wound that stays open.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that telling our hardest story first is the bravest thing we can do. But bravery isn’t baring your soul before you’ve had a chance to understand it. It’s choosing what to share with care, intention, and self-respect.

This culture can make it feel like if you’re not crying on camera or disclosing personal trauma, your story won’t matter. But that’s a myth. The most impactful stories come from internal spaciousness—from the flip side of emotional integration. And most of them are much subtler than you might think.

I believe:

Your story is not a transaction.
Your pain is not proof of your value.
Your voice deserves time, space, and discernment.

You don’t have to “go there” before you’re ready. Even if your story feels ready, it may still need to be practiced, held, and metabolized. Because too often we don't know where the lines in our story are until we cross them. That's why we need spaces of containment to practice speaking our stories and being with our bodies—so we're certain what step feels best for us and we have systems of care before, during, and after our storytelling practice.

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How To Stretch Into Vulnerability Without Ripping Yourself Open

There’s a difference between a stretch and a tear—between brave vulnerability and re-traumatization.

A stretch nudges you to your edge. You might feel butterflies, a dry throat, your heart pounding. But you’re grounded. Your body is tender but intact.

A tear happens when you override your signals—when urgency, people pleasing, or pressure push you past what your nervous system can hold. When sharing becomes reenactment of pain instead of release.

Stretching is how we grow. Tearing sends us backward—into fight, flight, freeze, shame, or silence. Too many people walk away from storytelling feeling gutted, not empowered. I don't want that for you.

"We are not here to bleed on the page to prove we’re brave."

We are here to speak with presence. With clarity, care, and choice. We are here to know why we’re sharing, for whom, and to what end.

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Listening Inward: Your Body Knows

Have you ever shared something that left you feeling raw instead of relieved? Maybe it was a post written in the heat of emotion, a video captured in a moment of fragility, or a story spoken aloud before your body had a chance to say yes.

Perhaps you’ve felt the strange ache of applause while your nervous system trembled underneath. Or maybe you’re holding back now—not out of fear, but because your body remembers what it felt like to be overexposed.

That tension? It’s not failure. It’s feedback. It’s an invitation to listen more closely.

Because tuning into your capacity isn’t something you figure out with logic. It’s a felt experience. Often, your body knows long before your mind can make sense of it.

So pause. Feel the ground beneath you. Notice the way your body is being held.

Then ask:

• Have I ever shared a story before I was truly ready? What happened in my body afterward?
• When have I honored my capacity—and what came from that choice?
• Has my body ever spoken louder than my thoughts about what I wanted to share?

You don’t need to solve or fix anything. Just notice. Your body may already be speaking to you.

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You Deserve the Time It Takes

In the space I hold, we don’t rush to tell the hardest story first. We don’t force visibility as proof of bravery. We pause. We practice. We build capacity and care. We tell our stories first for ourselves. And then when or if we're ready, we share them with the world.

Your are worthy.
Your story is sacred.
And your capacity is not a limitation—it’s embodied wisdom.

Come back to it. Come back to yourself.

If you’re feeling the call to explore this type of storytelling more deeply, please join us in the next Story Shaping Lab.