Wanted: Your Brave Stories
My heart craves your stories of kindness, honesty, and truth-telling (essential nourishment in times of worry and fear)
Dear Brave Soul: 🫀That moment your throat tightens, your hands shake, but you speak up anyway? Or that day you override your shy bone to cross the street and help your neighbor. In my second year on Substack, this space wants to reflect our collective acts of everyday courage. Will you please share your story? But first, here’s a message for our sponsor, Mother Earth:
🌟 What do small acts of bravery look and feel like?
That time I stood up to...
The day I gave up something hard…
The moment I trusted myself to…
That turning point when I let myself feel…
The blessed hour someone lifted me with…
The week I said f*ck it and finally tried…
The day I claimed my value, and…
That time I didn’t think I could survive, but…
If any of these spark an idea, please reply or comment. Say hi. Introduce yourself. Let it simmer if you like (don’t let too many practical demands steal your brave creative energy).
📝 How To Share Your Story
Please have a look around Mostly Brave. If our vibe is a match, and this idea lights you up, please subscribe. While my following isn't huge (yet), I trust our authentic stories to lift each other up. We go further together.
Reach out with your idea or short essay (up to 700 words). I’m also open to a poem, song, visual piece, video, or we can do an interview. Let’s explore what works.
💡Here’s a prompt for your story.
You don’t have to follow this scene flow, but it gives a sense of what I’m after:
Decide who you’re writing about (you or someone else). What do they want most?
Begin with 3 precise, sensory details about time and place. Thursday? Last year? Sunset? Kitchen table? At work? Help us touch, smell, see, or hear what’s happening.
What’s the obstacle? What stands in the way of their desire? Inner or outer? (Confusion, conflict, a bully, the law, etc.) How does it feel to face this?
What’s the catalyst? What changes? What opens up (inside or outside).
What brave action do you (or others) take? How does it feel?
How does it feel after this step?
💗 My Brave Moment (a short example from today)
As I write this on my laptop, sipping homemade chai, I see a sparkling Salish Sea sunrise through the big rosy windows in my office. Yet I still feel shitty.
My heart yearns to invite you to share your stories so that this space becomes less about me and more about you. So we can support each other in sharing our voices.
But I am confused, unclear, and overwhelmed about how to craft this opportunity. Now I’m Ms. Grumpypants who snaps at her partner. I step outside to sing and walk, my daily gratitude ritual. But this messy feeling - that I’m not doing this right - sticks with me. Why can’t I finish this task?
I take a moment to ask my soul, aka my higher self: ‘what’s up?’ She reveals an old, underlying fear and belief: I’m (asking) too much. You won’t respond. I will be alone.
My heart softens with recognition and love for the little one in me who was left alone and felt abandoned. Who believed it was her fault. That something’s wrong with her.
I hold her in my heart and breathe deeply: Ahhh… I affirm that all is well, in this moment, with the sun glinting on the Salish Sea. I finish this post with more trust. I trust this longing for you and your stories. I trust that your brave story will be revealed and celebrated here. Because Mostly Brave is brave enough!
🎁 Resources For Your Brave Voice
Choose a tool from my online deck of playful, 5-minute creative practices to feed your inner strength (don’t miss videos of my ridiculous alter ego, Queen Poopicina, sharing the Holy Sh*t! version of the deck). Share with friends who are playful and deep.
🗣️ Thank you for being (Mostly) Brave. I look forward to your ideas!
💗 When you like, comment, subscribe, or share with a friend, you help more of us feel braver in these troubling times.
More to come, with Big Love,
A multi-passionate former creative director, my work has appeared in Time Magazine, feature films and television, newspapers, YA fantasy novels, and on stages. My creative tool decks are used in therapy offices and bathrooms across the USA 💩 More at HeartsQuest.com. 💗
Responding to your comment about being born in Fremont. My parents moved to Seattle which is where I grew up. There and in Bellevue/Medina. Lived on Lake Washington. Came to California and haven't felt the need to move again. San Francisco, Berkeley, and Marin County were good to me. I submitted my responses to the Oldsters' Questionnaire and then was told that my life story was too triggering for the audience of that Substack and so it did not get published. As a (now retired) psychotherapist I've heard many stories that were much more horrendous than mine. I look forward to reading your substack.