When You Start Having An Impact On People, Beautiful Things Happen
Interaction is the fuel to carry on with what you do best
You sit at your computer another day.
Maybe you will post your story on one of your platforms, or maybe you decide you are just going to keep it as part of your diary.
If you decide to share your story, your thoughts, and your experiences with the world, you may reach someone who is actually at a crossroads, waiting for life not to make things worse, or waiting for something to bring light to that dark space where they find themselves at the moment.
The kind of magic I am talking about is bidirectional, even though you might not see it that way at the beginning.
Once you have touched someone, you are quite likely to get touched by this person with a comment, suggestion or even a story. And that’s the kind of feedback that will make you feel it was all worth it.
I personally see these messages as indicators or synchronicities that keep guiding my way.
Impact people talking about your body horrors
We all have bodies that go through trauma, let us down, change and mutate. We don’t generally feel like showing our ugly sides, that’s why we hide under makeup or a fake smile. We are wired to look good in front of others. But the truth is that talking about body horror brings people together, it can be comforting, and it helps to create awareness.
When I wrote about childbirth in my article, Women Still Don’t Say It As It Is About Giving Birth And It Drives Me Mad, I didn’t know I was going to touch so many women and even men in the process.
The topic was controversial but I had been wanting to write about it for a long time. Once again, I want to thank Sally Prag for homing this article on her publication Badform, a place where you will feel a special kind of freedom to say things as they come to your head, without filters.
That article made me realise how many hidden stories were there to be told and it even encouraged other women to talk openly about their experiences, as they felt them.
Thanks to that article I am now friends with writers like Delilah Rose, Joy DeSomber and Casey Stanley, who also has a wonderful publication called A Unique Life whose mojo “Bringing awareness to marginalised groups!” is all about bringing light to chronic illnesses, disability, racism and LGBTQ+.
Meeting other people and learning about their contribution to the world gets you out of your head and helps put your problems into perspective and even to use.
Impact people talking about their inevitable death
The topic that always gets people’s perspectives and vulnerability across in a healthy way is death.
Death is something we all share. Nobody knows what it’s like to die because nobody has come back from it to tell the rest of us. I know that we could discuss this further, as mediums and other sensible people can help with that. However, if you are more scientifically wired, this option might sound like mumbo jumbo.
In any case, I never thought I was going to engage in a really interesting conversation with Art Bram, who commented on my article Death, Loss And Grief Shape Us Into Who We Are, by saying the following:
… terrific, stuff I never thought about before and in my 70+ years, so many of them spent reading self-growth books, being in therapy and 12-step meetings, I never gave much thought if any to the valuable topic.
Another writer I got to know more about whose story really touched me was Jim Parton. Here you have an example of synchronicity that ended up in reciprocity after he commented on my article You Cannot Avoid Death But You Can Learn to Deal With It. These are his words:
What an odd time to find your story. I’m sitting/working/waiting on a possible and likely CT scan with a cancer diagnosis as I write this. You can bet my mortality is on my mind….so, I’ll try to take this to heart, and no matter the outcome, try to enjoy what days I have.
These are some examples of the impact you can have on people by writing about topics so difficult to address, but that concern us all.
Impact people by being on more than one platform
Recently I received a touching comment from Robert Ralph, someone I admire on Medium for everything he’s been doing for quite some time now. He set up his publication New Writers Welcome for people who start on Medium and that, like myself at the time, were very scared and insecure about showing their work to the world.
After leaving a reply to his article Medium’s New Goals, I received an encouraging reply where he tells me I am ahead of the game in the online world and that he takes inspiration from people like me.
All I could say was wow!
I mean, if anything can feed your ego are comments like this.
You can read Robert Ralph’s article here:
When people start being curious about what you do on other platforms they check them and they learn a lot of new things.
The Gothic is precisely one of those spaces. Many people have heard of the word, but not many have had the chance to analyse it in depth.
Videos are a good place for people to see you, hear you and form a more rounded opinion about you. The risk is that they might also dislike what they see but that’s a risk you must be willing to take.
At the end of the day, we are all drawn to authenticity, and the visual part is very important, even if it’s in video format.
Final thoughts
A good way to see how you have impacted people with your stories is to go back at them, read the comments, reenact those conversations that moved you and ask yourself the following questions:
- How did you touch others?
- What have you learnt from connecting with them and reading their stories?
- What can you replicate in the future?
As a content creator, you need your audience’s feedback, you need the human touch to feel you are on the right path or at least a path that is fulfilling for others but that fulfils you as well.
After that, you need to evaluate if that experience is something you would like to continue replicating and even doing for the rest of your life, or at least for the time being.
Once you have let all those feelings and thoughts marinate, you will see clearly what your next step is. Hopefully, it will be to keep having a positive impact on other people’s lives.
I hope this article has helped you create enough awareness, value enough the work you are doing and see the beauty of everything you are gaining from it to keep you going.
Thanks for reading
- I write and talk about the Gothic all the time to help people know more about themselves.- If you want to have access to thousands stories from me and other writers on Medium you can use my referral link at no additional cost to you.- Also, find and create great images, by using my referal link to use Canva.
