S2E31: This Is Why I Write With Maryann Samreth

Maryann goes solo for the first time in season 2. she vulnerably shares why she writes and how the power of language allowed her to reclaim her voice and be herself in this world.

In this first solo episode of season 2, I share my story of why I write and how writing helped me reclaim my voice and my power. I dive into the healing process of writing to make a deeper meaning of our past and how being witnessed by our truth-telling can create change in the world. I also do a Q & A from questions asked on Instagram at the end of this episode and share details about what clients experience working with me as their writing coach as well as my personal memoir writing journey. If you are writing your memoir or considering starting this journey, this episode is for you.

Book Memoir Momentum, a 90-minute coaching intensive to help you write a chapter of your memoir and learn the embodied storytelling framework you can use throughout your writing process.

https://www.sincerelymissmary.com/memoirmomentum

Maryann Samreth 0:00

Welcome to mental breakthrough, a mental health podcast about owning our most vulnerable stories. As a reminder, we are all human. I'm MaryAnn Samreth, trauma training coach, founder of sincerely Miss Mary and your host. This season I bring in healers, coaches, therapists and writers in the mental health and thought leadership space to share their stories of overcoming their shadows, to get to a place where the light shines again. These are trauma survivors, mental health advocates, spiritual guides, coaches, and first and foremost, human beings, reminding us to be softer and kinder to ourselves, so we can then meet others with the same compassion. The power and sharing our truths with the world gives permission for others to feel safe experiencing theirs. As a disclaimer, this podcast is not a replacement for trauma informed therapy. But as always, you can find mental health resources on my website at www that sincerely, Miss mary.com.

Hey, everyone, so I was going to do a podcast episode about how my essay, a tech shock therapist and validated my dating journey as a trauma survivor went viral. But I'm just not feeling like talking about that. I think I'm just kind of over it that Tik Tok video going viral the essay going viral.

I didn't even mean for that to go viral. I didn't even mean for any of it to blow up the way that it did. And there is no secret formula to why things go viral. I mean, you can Google it, and Google Hot headlines that people read. But at the end of the day, the writing process is for you. The writing process is the magic that happens within it, where you're able to connect pieces of you together like a puzzle and create new meaning. So I'll save that episode another time. If you came to listen to how to make a assay go viral. This isn't the one and I don't even know if that's really me. Because I don't write to for things to go viral. I hope that it does. I trust that when I write certain articles or certain pieces or put certain content out that it gets to the right people, that message gets to the right people. And when I least expect it, it does. I don't even choose what goes viral. It's what the world needs at that time. And I truly believe that I truly believe that is social impact. When you believe in your truth. You put it out into the world, and you see where it goes. That's the magic of sharing your story. That's courage. That is creating an energetic shift in the world by putting your truth out there. And trusting that courage will take your words to the right people. So what is this episode about? I tossed all my notes, my outline. And this is a full stream of consciousness podcast. This is me just speaking from the heart. And what I feel called to talk about tonight, which is almost 9pm.

I want to talk about why I write. So I didn't think my life would be like this today. I did not think I'd ever be a writer, you know, I dabbled it in it. In high school. I did always love writing poetry. But it's not something that I really took notice of I never took notice of the process of writing, I kind of, you know, stopped caring about it in college when it just became homework assignments and writing essays for school projects. That was the extent of my writing. But something happened in 2018. When I began writing anonymously, as sincerely Miss Mary, I started Reclaiming my voice. And what that felt like, for the first time in my life was feeling like I mattered. Writing helped me feel like I mattered, because for most of my life, I felt voiceless, voiceless externally. Internally, I was fucking loud.

Internally, I was an over thinker and had such severe social anxiety that I would be paralyzed, to speak externally. So I became that quiet person growing up, listening to what other people told me to do, how to be how to act. I was voiceless, because I felt choiceless that's what trauma does to you and makes you feel like you have no choice. And writing allowed me to have choice again, because when I began writing anonymously as sincerely, Miss Mary, something happened, where my voice was emboldened, where I realized that I

I had a choice because writing was the only time in place that I could just be alone with my own thoughts. And that is terrifying for someone like me who's had severe complex trauma in my life, to be alone with my thoughts was very, very scary. But when I finally did it, I started putting words onto my iPhone, and formulating thoughts and opinions. I felt like I mattered, I felt like for the first time in my life, I could make myself feel like I mattered. Because if I'm alone, with my thoughts, and I have a choice, why not choose hope, but why not choose to see the light to Why stay in the shadow, if I'm alone, with my thoughts, I can choose to be in the light again. And that's what happened. So even within the writing process of the beginning of my writing journey looked messy and angry and triggering, because I was triggered by, you know, being an emotionally abusive relationship and, and all these things I talked about, and season one mental breakthrough, it was chaos. You could see it in some of my poems, you can see the storm, but even when writing that, I still felt the light coming in, writing my truth, broke my heart open to let more light in. So this is why I write to writing is for me, to have a relationship with the truth inside my body. And that relationship is ever evolving. It is not linear. There is so many emotions that come within the writing process within my truths from keeping it in so long that it just seeped out of me writing paved my way to freedom. And this is why I write, I write to have a voice, again, to have a tangible voice on paper where I can just be unapologetically me in make myself feel good to the point where when I do share it with the world, no one can validate me or take my power away. And yes, I will go through moments where someone will write a hate comment, and I'll feel bad about myself, but I'll just feel the bad emotions. I won't label myself as unworthy because I always deserve to speak my truths. Writing is always for you. Having a voice is powerful in doing it, through writing feels safe, it feels safe to be loud, it feels safe to be angry, it feels safe to be you. That is why I write so I can feel what it's like to feel safe to be myself in this world, to know that I could pave my own way into the light again, and shine it for the rest of the world to see. So they too, can also feel that empowerment I have seeping through my body to share my writing is writing the love I have for myself, because that's what happened. When I began writing my truths, I began to fall deeply, madly in love with myself, I couldn't get here without my writing. Writing was my muse. And this, this is what I teach to everyone. This is what I teach to my clients. This is what I teach in my workshops. I teach people how to feel safe to be themselves in this world using the powerful tool of writing. So I'm just going to keep this podcast short and sweet. It's about 10 minutes. Um, yeah, that feels good of me shouting in your ears, words of affirmation about writing. Because if you have that fire inside you to write your story, do it. Because the world needs more empowered voices. It needs your voice, it needs your story. This world needs you. It needs more of you. Because we live in a very, very broken world. It's pretty clear what their massive 2022 It is so messy right now. And what I want more of in the world are people brave enough to share their story, to speak their truths to show their goodness and their humaneness in the world. That is how social impact is created. When more people dare to rise and use their voice use the power of language. This is why

I write in this is why I empower all of you to do the same. So before I am an episode, I'm going to answer some questions that people asked on Instagram about writing. First question is, I have such a fear of canceled culture and being torn apart because of something unintentional? Well, I have a lot to say about trolls and haters, because I had a troll that made a bunch of false claims about my writing, being wise about my article about calling out a therapist being wise, and I know how that feels. And it's important to know that you are putting your truth out there and hurting someone's feelings was unintentional. And that's because we all have our own individualized experiences that create our perception of the world. So we can't control if someone is going to be hurt or triggered by our words, we hope that it gets to the right people, and empower them. And if that happens, and if you get canceled, hopefully that does not happen. Whatever it is, you're being canceled for know that we're going to make mistakes as writers, there are going to be moments where when we are not perfect. And if that happens, and we offend someone, then we reevaluate ourselves, we look into why we hurt someone, and we apologize. And we take accountability. And we do widen our view of someone's perception of us. If it's very completely, we did something insensitive, we look into it, and we, you know, reevaluate ourselves in our perception. We just try to widen it, and know that it's okay to make mistakes and be imperfect. In terms of just you know, a troll being a troll and a hater, being a hater, know that there are people out there who profit off hating other creators, there are people that have businesses off making bots that hate on content creators, and sometimes they target people of color. So when you get hate comments, and it looks really, really mean and almost immature, know that it's probably from a bot or someone's getting paid to do that. And know that you're not going to be everyone's cup of tea that we have such that as writers, we have such a wide view of the world, being a writer writing our truths, that someone that has a more narrow view of the world might be triggered by our truth. And that's okay, it does not negate our truth, it does not negate our movement of writing our truths out there. It just means that our writing is not for everyone. And that's okay. And that's something to understand that's going to happen when you put yourself out there when you decide to be seen for your story for your truth is that, yes, in order to get your words out to the right people, it's also going to get to people that will have something to say and that's just part of sharing your work with the world that's just part of being seen. And it takes a lot of practice to not let those mean comments get to you. And I will tell you that it still gets to me because in my personal trauma criticism is something that I have a very hard time with. And so I acknowledge, when I get triggered, if someone writes a mean comment, and I nurture my inner child, I nurture myself, instead of denying those emotions coming up, I acknowledge it, accept it, and I just turn inward and nurture that part of me that is wounded, that is still wounded and triggered. It's okay, it's so human to be upset and triggered by main comments. It is so human, feel your fields, acknowledge what has happened and nurture yourself. The second question is, I don't think others would be interested in my story. So every person that I work with, I make them do their story. Why? Why do you want to write your story? What impact do you want to make on others because if you have an intention to share your story with the world, you have an impact that you want to make. That is enough to make your story interesting. Having a storyline having an intention, a takeaway for why you are writing your story and the reader you want to reach. It's what's going to fuel your fire of writing your story. You will never have writer's block if you have a writer's why. And you know exactly the reason you're writing your story. And the third question is what if I'm afraid to share my story, then you wait till you're ready. I would never force anyone to share their story if they are not ready and why believe someone may not be ready to share their story is because they did not get what they needed to out of the writing process. They are probably thinking more about sharing their story more than they are about the writing process. So when you are writing your story, you are connecting the dots of your life you are making new meaning from adversity happening in your life. And when that happens, a shift happens inside of you. You become more compassionate, you become more loving towards your past self. You start to live a life of more affirmations from the things that have happened to you in your past. So when you get

get to that place where you connect the dots and you make meaning out of what has happened to you, you will no longer be afraid to share your story, because you got what you needed out of writing your story. And the last question, Are you in contact with a publisher. So I wrote this in my newsletter, I had a literary agent reach out to me in November, I think it was actually end of October, who was interested in my story, and wanted me to pitch him my book proposal. So I have been writing my memoir, loosely since last summer. And really, intentionally and purposefully in November, then I got re traumatized from writing about my drama, that I have not shared with the world yet. Had to do some therapy. And now I'm back on writing my memoir, I am okay, did a lot of somatic therapy, got certified in somatic drama therapy, which has helped me utilize tools on myself to write my memoir safely, which is also what I bring to my clients that write with me. So that is happening in my personal writing life, I am connected with a literary agent who is waiting for my book proposal. So I'm doing all the moves to do that. And I will, yeah, it's it's a pretty big deal to me. So I probably will not share on social media, when you know, things get moving, I'm probably going to share in my podcast and in my newsletter, just because I want to keep that more private. It's still Yeah, it's, I have a lot of feelings about writing my memoir, my full story, you know, the world knows half my story. And the other half is much darker. And that's not something I'm ready to put out there yet. I dabbled a little you know about what I've been writing about my childhood trauma.

And that that's still something that I'm still working on processing, as I'm writing, and will share will be more comfortable to share as I go through that processing. So yes, stay tuned. So I hope you guys enjoyed it, this stream of consciousness episode.

I don't even know what I sounded like. It's probably a mix of spoken word emotions and lots of writing fire to get you started. So if you would like to work with me, I am offering 90 minute coaching intensives to write your memoir. So in this session, I'm using Somatic Experiencing somatic ifs Matic writing to help you write the first chapter of your memoir. What this is, it's basically like every client's first session working with me, we do a deep dive of the of the book you want to write. And then we break down one specific story into a chapter and we workshop it, I workshop it with you. And we basically put together a chapter of your book from beginning to end, you will learn my embodied storytelling framework. So you'll be able to use that over and over again, when you write your personal essay or more chapters of your writing. Even a social media caption. This is my framework that I use for my memoir, and also what I teach to every client. So this session looks different for everyone, it is not the same for each person, because I go off by what you are bringing in today what your body is ready to write, I use resonance with you to make you feel safe in writing your memoir. So it is a slow pace. It's what you can handle at each time. So it's what your body can handle. So you come into the session, and I guide you through your body story, and we pull truths from your body. It's a it's a somatic experience. And it's it's great i man like the client sessions are amazing seeing people connect their stories. It's It's like watching magic happen. It's a beautiful process. So definitely book a session. I'll put the link in my show notes. You can also go to sincerely Miss Mary comm slash memoir momentum and would love to meet you and coach you through your memoir writing journey. We need your voice. We need more stories out there. We need. We need more bipoc voices, we need more female voices. We just need more healing voices out there. So if you're listening to this podcast, it's probably because you've been through a lot of shit and you've healed you're healing from it and you're on your post traumatic growth season. And those are the kinds of stories that can change the world. And yeah, I'm cheering you on. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and yeah, they'll definitely be more solo podcast in the future.

Where I talk about the writing process, I give tips and I share a little bit of my my my writing journey. So thank you and have a great day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai