OMG I HAVE A BLOG! Why I broke through the fear barrier to share my online writing with my real world friends...

Note from Caitlin of Dose of Wonder -

JFT Beach 🇬🇧 🏊 🧘‍♂️

and his Happier and Healthier Substack brings his trademark wit and wisdom to help you live a better life. So without further ado…

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This week I’ve taken a BIG stride…

I’ve decided to mix my online world with my real one.

And it’s a bit frightening tbh.

I've been writing here on this Substack blog for a good while now.

Then copy ‘n’ pasting some of the better articles on a private Whatsapp group with my local sea swimming friends.

Keeping my 2 worlds of real and online separate.

(I know, what an inauthentic little scammer right?!)

Why?

At first I couldn’t quite work it out.

I’ve had to dig deep into the dark recess of the hubbling, bubbling, toilet toiling waters in my crown, for an answer.

And I decided it was good old fashioned fear that stopped me mixing my worlds before.

F……. oolishness

E…… mbarrassment

A……. nd

R…… ejection.

Yep like most of us I have a healthy dose of Imposter syndrome.

It's one thing writing some words for a few likes and thumbs up emojis in a closed friend group.

Also fine to post some stuff on my Substack blog for a mainly North American readership, as I'm not bumping into them at the local coffee shop.

The below scenario just ain’t happening with someone from deepest, darkest, Pennsylvania at my local Starbucks in England:

“Morning mate, that stuff you wrote was a bit crap yesterday, no offence.

All that jibber, jabbering about thoughts and feelings.

Utter tosh geezer!

Hang on a sec…

Yep I’ll have a 2 shot of espresso with whipped cream and nuts in my green tea mate, cushty!

Sorry about that bud … where was I?

Oh yeah, not being rude but that blog thing of yours is not for me, it’s pretty stoopid”

Luckily that kinda chat is just NOT GONNA HAPPEN IN THE ONLINE WORLD (thank fuck goodness).

But combining the two… virtual and real friends… scary biscuits indeed-eth!

Nowhere to hide when if I do write something a bit useless.

What if I upset - annoy - irritate people?

Wait… hold up… rewind…

No probs there actually I do this every day… just ask my family! 🙂

So I had me a big lump of fear because people… real people… (not internet people ) could actually comment to me with proper actual spoken words; you know the ones that come out of your mouth.

Nooooooooooolooo!

I felt a sudden urge to run for the hills like a turkey hearing the first strains of Mariah Carey in early December.

“Gobba Lobba Lobble!”

(Which roughly translated, from my semester in Fowl Bird Studies at the University of Totally Made Up Nonsense, means:

“that bloody Mariah’s sat there in a Hollywood Mansion creaming in the royalties, living off champagne and fancy canapés, whilst I'm here freezing cold, chewing on corn, and waiting to be turned into dinner. Go ahead riddle me that one Batman if you can.”

Or something like that, the local dialect can impact on the exact meaning…)

Photo by Grace Mooney on Unsplash

Anyway back to reality; sorry for the short foray into Turkey-sville.

The issue I was raising was that being open and authentic in this way can make one feel a tad anxious.

So why do it?

Well ironically with all my self doubtinging-tons it's because I've had some nice feedback to something I scribbled recently

I wrote about the damaging illusion that epic overseas travel adventures can have to the brain, if one is not awfully careful.

A couple of people said they found it interesting.

In real life, in the flesh, words!

Wowzers.

Turns out my writings might have a bit of value.

Some use to others.

And whilst I'm no deep thinking Aristotle or genius brained Stephen Hawking, maybe I can share some half sensible ideas and general philosopho-izing that might be handy.

So share it I shall because that seems the right thing to do, especially if it might occasionally help the odd plum in distress.

Plus I get all the hard drug dopamine hits which come from getting a kind comment.

We're all addicts to something aren't we?.

But luckily I don't think I'm the only one in this boat.

Seems to me the good ship HMS ‘I've got 1 or 2 issues I need to work on’ has a few fellow passengers.

So to finish on this nautical vibe that I seemed to have sailed off down (⛵😁)

I hope my writing can help steer 1 or 2 people away from the rocks of self destruction and on to the calmer straits of smiley-faced happy thoughts.

Or at very least not get all Titanic’y on my ass!

If this can happen, even just every now and then, I'll be as happy as a turkey waking up on December 26th.

Happy Sunday,

JFT Beach

Thanks so much to JFT Beach for being a guest on Dose of Wonder and sharing his story with us here! And don’t forget to check out his Substack below for more great content like this (or here if viewing on the app and you don’t see a link below):