When I think about this past year, I picture myself stepping into a new room of my haunted house. One I was finally brave enough to open. Standing there, I can feel all the versions of me bouncing off the walls and moving through me. Nothing is quiet in that room. Everything echoes.
The longer I stood in that room, I started to notice the patterns. Certain versions of me showed up louder than the rest. The one who writes but is still searching for her voice. The one who needs to move her body to feel grounded and build confidence. The one who wants to encourage others even while she is still figuring things out herself. The one who people-pleases no matter how hard she tries not to. The one who holds in her true feelings to keep the peace. The one who doubts herself. The one who needs to turn pain into something meaningful and pass it on.
Some echoes passed through me with ease. Others smashed into me again and again, until I was on my knees. She hadn’t held much power in past years, but she was always there, trailing behind me from room to room. Now she demanded to be acknowledged.
The writer.
She stood over me and extended her hand. With hesitation, I grabbed it and let her pull me to my feet. We walked hand in hand as I navigated this new passion of mine. I finally stopped circling the idea of being a writer and stepped into it. I wrote essays, short stories, reflection pieces, newsletters, mini stories, and even started a novel. I shared my writing before I felt ready. They say to act like the future you want already exists, so that’s what I did. I wrote. I created habits. I stuck to strict schedules that I designed and enforced myself. There was no one hovering over me telling me what to do, no one motivating me. Just me and my discipline. While the echo of my writer dreams finally demanded my attention, it was the echo of my past perseverance and tenacity that propelled me forward.
As I moved through the year writing and experimenting, I found myself feeling a bit lost. My writing styles and voice felt scattered, all over the place. But by continuing to write, I started to learn what I liked and what I didn’t. And in doing that, I slowly began to find my voice. That part was tricky. The fear of my most authentic self not being accepted by others was always there. I called myself a horror writer, but what I learned is that my stories aren’t loud or flashy. They live in the quiet. They are the whispers that echo in our minds. The deep emotions and subtle horrors of the human experience are what I’m drawn to writing about.
And while I learned that my writing won’t be for everyone, it has to be something I enjoy creating. When I looked back at my work, I realized my voice had been there all along. I just had to stop overthinking it and let it be.
As I listened to the echo of the writer, another one stepped in beside us and linked her arm through my other side. We stood there intertwined. This echo had been with me for years and she knew her power.
Movement.
When the echoes of writing and everyday life became too loud for me to handle, movement became my anchor. I need to move my body to survive my own mind at times. It allows me to breathe and builds my confidence in ways nothing else ever has. Movement will forever be my medicine. Medicine for my anxiety, my self-doubt, and a way to clear out the noise. As someone who lives in her head a lot, writing put me back there even more than usual. So I used movement as a way to get out of my head and back into my body. I also used movement to build confidence. When I lift weights I never imagined I could, I’m showing my brain that I can do hard things. That I am stronger than I think. And that strength spills into other areas of my life.
When movement pulled me out of my head and back into my body, I felt strong enough to look outward again. And that’s when another echo made itself known.
The helper.
When I felt strong, grounded, and clear, I wanted to pass that feeling on. I wanted to encourage others. To let them know they were stronger than they thought. That they were capable of building habits to reach any goal, big or small. I wanted people to know that they mattered. I encouraged them to choose joy, to love themselves more, and to remember that even though the world around us may feel chaotic, we can still find peace, love, and joy.
But the more I shared my daily encouraging videos, the more I felt the need to perform. I began placing my self-worth in the hands of an algorithm and strangers on the internet. Encouraging others felt good. It still does. But over time, I realized I wasn’t always practicing what I preached. Sometimes I was saying things because I thought that’s what people wanted to hear, or what might earn me an empty double tap of a digital heart.
And I didn’t realize it then, but that’s when the echo of my people-pleasing past began to seep back in. The one who doesn’t know how to say no, so others take advantage. The one who is scared to challenge people because I’m afraid it’ll cost me the relationship. Abandonment issues, am I right?
I found myself slipping back into old habits. Staying quiet. Suppressing my true feelings. Just trying to keep the peace because I couldn’t handle any more chaos. But toward the end of the year, that blew up in my face, like it always does, and I had another anxiety attack. Not fun.
And while I let the echo of the people pleaser creep back in, her best friend piggybacked right along with her and latched onto me.
Greta.
My inner gremlin.
That bitch will not leave me alone. No matter how many times I’ve killed her, she finds a way to resurrect. Self-doubt is something I’ve struggled with for as long as I can remember. It can make me feel small. Worthless. Greta has a sneaky way of taking over, usually showing up as self-sabotage. The dream of writing a book has lived in my heart for years, but every time I thought about it, Greta was there to tell me I wasn’t smart enough. And for a long time, I listened. So it makes sense that when I finally decided to be brave and step into new territory, she did everything she could to stop me.
But here’s the thing I’m only just realizing now as I type this. Greta isn’t evil. She’s trying to keep me safe.
Greta is my anxiety.
And while she has influenced my writing in many ways, I’m slowly learning how to take the mic away from her. She doesn’t like movement or dance much, so I use those as tools. Walking while I write. Letting my body move so my mind can quiet down. It’s become my secret weapon when I’m working on my book.
Greta loves alcohol and THC. They fueled her and amplified her, especially THC, in dangerous ways. It’s been about six months without both of those things, and I am incredibly proud of myself for that. All of this is to say, I’m realizing she will probably always be a part of me. I just need to stop letting her lead.
Anxiety, self-doubt, people-pleasing, the helper. Those echoes didn’t just want to be heard. They wanted somewhere to land. Writing became the place where pain could move instead of bouncing endlessly inside me. Where experience could be broken down, reshaped, and passed forward so it didn’t stay lodged in my chest. Speaking my truth out loud has never come easily to me, but writing has become my outlet. I didn’t realize how much I needed it until I started letting myself use it this way. I write to process, to make sense of things, and to give my pain somewhere to go instead of carrying it alone.
And I share it not just as a form of therapy for myself, but to remind others they aren’t alone. If you’re like me and tend to process pain quietly and internally, it can feel isolating. I want my writing to be a reminder that you’re not broken. That you matter. That your feelings are valid. That we have more in common than we think.
This year I learned that the echoes that followed me into this new room, this new version of myself, will follow me into the next chapter too. They don’t disappear. No matter how hard we try to silence or erase them, they live quietly in our subconscious. What I’ve realized is that it’s up to us how much power we give them.