Self-Expression Is A Sacred Key

Writing will unlock your power, your truth and so much more.

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

Writing is a great and glorious act of self-expression. It can take our hearts to depths unfathomable and sweep us into journeys beyond the veil. It can unravel tangled strands of soul and capture our starlight, for a few fleeting moments, in corporeal form. Writing at its best is breathing. It is an exhale of authenticity in a world intent on smothering such things.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, self-expression means, “The expression of one’s own personality; assertion of one’s individual traits.” The dictionary of Cambridge provides an equally as clipped definition, insisting it is, “An expression of your personality, emotions, or ideas, especially through art, music, or acting.” To self-express is to make one’s internal world external, but is it truly that simple? 

Both dictionaries agree that the act of self-expression is tethered to personality. It is a donation to the world of art dripping with your blood. What color is that blood? Does it swirl with shades of cynical silver or melancholy blue? Is it a cheerful cerise or sunflower yellow? Perhaps it is vibrant ultraviolet, undetectable to the eye, but real, true, and beautiful all the same. Are there too many colors to count? Is it a liquid canvas with no color at all? 

How did your blood come to be this way? Were you born with certain hues? Did you acquire some with experience? Have they changed over time? 

All of these questions are meant to sow seeds of self-exploration, which often lead to flowering flora of self-expression. The plants are not forced or coerced out of the earth. They grow naturally, flourishing in soil nurtured by warmth, curiosity, and acceptance. Each bloom is an effortless expression of the self, and thus, an act of self-expression.

Your personality, your infinitely colorful lifeblood, is not something that can be quantified or caged by archetypes. It isn’t an amalgamation of passive reactions to external stimuli.

Psychologists have tried to convince the masses that we are mere products of our surroundings. While I agree circumstances inform our behaviour, I do not believe behaviour is personality. Behavior refers to how we behave in response to the outside world, to survive. Personality refers to who we are in spite of it. 

This is one of the reasons self-expression is so sacred. It asks us to cast aside all expectations of conformity and deliberately misbehave. In an act of self-expression, we are admitting rather brazenly that we are not products of all that’s been allowed. We are beyond the bones of acceptable reality, because we are ethereal impossibility made manifest. 

We are more, and that is terrifying.

It’s terrifying to see such more-ness, let alone to share it. In our world, to be subtle is to be safe. Anonymity is a protective shield. To be known is to be exposed, like a hermit crab scuttling from one shell to another. However, let’s assume that the hermit crab is not helpless. In fact, it’s powerful, but there’s a catch. It can only access its full potential without wearing a shell. 

The shell is safety; it’s been safety for as long as the crab can remember. It will have gone its entire life unaware of its power, veiled and suppressed by every whelk, conch, and nautilus it’s grown into. Only an act of mad bravery, an occurrence of dumb luck, or the tragedy of having its shell ripped away would provide revelation. 

Either way, once the shell is gone, the crab possesses laser vision. A hungry seagull comes along, and the naked crab vaporises it. Vulnerability was always the gateway to its power. It took a moment of terror, but eventually, the crab realised it. Now, it’ll never again wear a shell. 

You’ve been taught that to be your true self is a daring and dangerous thing. It is. However, it is also the key to every super power you’ve been tricked into burying. After you shed the shell, you’ll show up in the world as the self. You’ll then be able to express that self. You’ll be truly, wholly, and unabashedly you. You’ll be supernatural and seen for it. You’ll be found by those meant to find you. 

Self-expression is sacred, and now more than ever, it is necessary. The world needs people who are brave enough to face the day with their own unique strangeness and mystical individuality. It needs people to be themselves, and to show love, compassion, and kindness to others doing the same. We are a mosaic of cosmic expression, and here on Earth, we are meant to celebrate that. 

Humor me. What if this life is just one big birthday party? Every day, everyone is reborn, new and ancient, ephemeral and eternal. The task of life is to attend the party. It is to be the birthday king and queen, to self-express so that you might be celebrated. It is also to celebrate others as fervently as you can. What if this life isn’t a school, or a mission, or a secret sliver of human hell? What if it’s just… a birthday party. The theme is sacred self-expression, and the party favors are the things we make with it.