How Can I Learn to Be Vulnerable in My Writing?
Part 2 of “How Can I Find My Unique Writing Voice?”
Getting in touch with your own unique and authentic writing voice is a doddle for some, and the hardest thing in creation for others. In Part 1, we talked about the difference between writing voice and writing style, and identified three reasons why you might be struggling to find your voice: fear, deference, and disconnection.
Here in Part 2, I’m going to talk you through a specific exercise that may help get your voice out in the open and down on the page. Of course, this is just one exercise of many, but it may give you just the nudge you need.
How do voice and vulnerability go together?
Part 1 identified that fear as a blocker most likely leaves you knowing what you want to say, possibly even how you want to say it, but you hold back to protect yourself from being vulnerable.
Recognize that voice and vulnerability are vital to one another, two sides of the same coin. You can’t have a strong voice unless you allow yourself to be vulnerable.
Vulnerability is… Well, it’s damn scary is what it is. But you won’t find your voice unless you allow yourself to be vulnerable. It’s time to pull up your big-writer panties (or possibly shuck ‘em altogether), and tackle this fear.
What do I need before I start this exercise?
Get yourself a piece of paper and your writing implement of choice. You could use your phone or computer or tablet, but for this exercise, I recommend paper. Why? Ah! That’ll become clear in a sec.
Next, take yourself off somewhere alone, or at least somewhere no one who knows you is nearby. If you live in the country, like I do, you might toddle off into a cornfield and hide among the stalks (NOT during harvest; getting yourself threshed is maybe a wee step beyond the level of humiliation and vulnerability that’s useful). If you’re a city dweller, maybe visit a park, or a food court filled with no one you know.
This exercise could work with any memory or situation that elicits any kind of emotional response from you, but in this post I’m focusing on the one that’s probably the most challenging for the most people. Feel free to modify the exercise to suit your needs.
TRIGGER WARNING
This exercise requires you to dredge up uncomfortable memories. If you don’t want to go there, STOP NOW. If you continue and remember something that’s too distressing, stop and see if you can find a memory that’s a little easier. Please use caution and reach out to someone if you need to.
Now sit you down and get to work.
Step one: write your shameful memory (1 minute)
Think of an incident in your life that fills you with shame. I mean really fills you with that deep-down, I’m-never-telling-a-soul guilt, humiliation, remorse, etc. If you can’t find one, first, I don’t believe you; second, I still don’t believe you.
Go on, dig deep. What happened? Did it happen to you or did you “happen” it to another?
That’s better. I can feel you remembering, and it ain’t pretty.
Oh yeah. That’s the stuff…
Now, give yourself one minute and write that memory. Just one minute. No more. Get it down. You won’t get much in a minute, and that’s OK. Just. Get. It. On. Paper.
Don’t stop early. Don’t look back. DO NOT ERASE.
Write forward, always forward.
Yay!
Now open your eyes. Go on, stare that shame in the face and own it.
Still alive? Good job. Heart thumping? That’s normal. Breathe deep and remember: no one’s watching. No one’s ever going to read it because you’re going to destroy that paper when you’re done with it. Your secret’s safe.
Step two: expand on what happened (2 minutes)
Give yourself two minutes for the next part.
In two minutes, no more, expand on that incident. Where did it happen? When? How old were you? Were you alone or with others? If alone, why? If with others, why? Who were they? How old were they? What relation were they to you?
Write it all down. Use real names, real dates, real ages, real events. It won’t work otherwise. Voice = vulnerability. Vulnerability = voice.
If you find emotions coming out that you weren’t expecting, write them down before they self-censor and abandon you. Quick!
Time’s up. Watcha got?
Don’t worry if it’s crap. Crap is but a coffee house on the road to creativity.
The point is you wrote it.
Step three: dig into the causes (3 minutes)
Here we go again. You’re going to expand into more details. Truthful ones.
Give yourself three minutes.
Expand on what you’ve already written. Why did this shameful event take place? Random event or identifiable causes? What were they? Were they fair or unfair? To whom? Why do you say that?
Sometimes an incident may feel random at the time, but on reflection we realize it was more specific than we thought. Or vice versa: we may feel targeted for specific reasons in the moment, but after reflection realize it was truly a random event.
Stop and read.
Step four: name the emotions (4 minutes)
Now give yourself four minutes.
How did you feel? Try to name three emotions tied up in this incident. Name more if you can. What colour were these emotions? How did they taste? How did they smell? If you reached out and touched them, how would they feel?
(As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about shame and about the enormous Georgia Candy Roaster squash I dissected and roasted this morning. Not a shameful experience – I managed not to lose a finger or anything – but because it’s on my mind, I think that shame for me will now always be faded orange-yellow and forever feel slimy, like seeds scraped fresh from the heart of a squash.)
Stop at the end of four minutes. Read what you’ve written. As you read, what are you thinking? You may find your brain starts trying to rewrite. Trying to say things a little differently, a little better. That’s fantastic, but if it doesn’t, don’t worry.
Now comes the fun part. DESTROY YOUR PAPER.
Tear it into teeny pieces, burn it, haul out a huge black Sharpie and redact every line. Whatever it takes to get that puppy gone.
Why do I need to destroy what I’ve written?
Why are you doing this? You’ve likely figured that out already. Because you don’t want anyone else to read it. Ever.
For most of us, accessing our deepest selves can only happen when we feel safe and confident that we won’t be overlooked. We can’t be vulnerable if we think someone else may see what we’ve written, so we self-censor. But that leaves us feeling cheated. An exercise that’s done and dusted within 20 minutes, where your words literally vanish before anyone else can see them, frees you to let the truth out.
Later, when you’ve found your voice and become comfortable letting it out to play because you’ve also learned how to bring it to heel, you’ll be able to write freely without the destruction phase.
The five-minute free flow: let your voice run free
Now comes the part where I realize I should have told you to bring two pieces of paper.
Oops.
We’ll pretend I did.
So, get out your second piece of paper. Don’t worry, you’ll destroy this one too.
Write for five minutes non-stop. Same topic. Same ideas (repeating is fine), plus any others that show up along the way. Open your heart, open your soul. Let the emotions stream out like tears. Let yourself flow without thought of anything but letting yourself flow. Let your words weep onto the page.
Don’t stop early. Don’t look back. Don’t erase.
At the end of five minutes, stop. Or not. If it’s flowing, flow with it.
When you’re done, breathe a little. Give yourself time to come back to the present.
Read what you wrote.
What do you notice? Look beyond your messy handwriting. Do you see vulnerability? Do you see emotion? Do you see truth? Then you probably see voice.
Don’t worry if it’s crap, or the punctuation isn’t perfect. That’s for another day.
Destroy the paper.
If you burn it, please do so responsibly (farmers look askance at flaming cornfields).
Reflect.
What if this exercise doesn’t work for me?
This exercise may be a complete eye-opener for you. After you’ve done it, you may feel a huge release and know that your voice is ready to come out and play.
Hurrah!
But if you don’t, that’s no reflection on you (or me, by the way, just sayin’). You may not have accessed the best memory for the task. You may need to try the exercise multiple times to get comfortable with it. You may not have felt safe and private enough to let go and be vulnerable. You may need to sit in potatoes instead of corn. It may simply be the wrong exercise at the wrong time.
You can always try again.
But in my experience, this exercise is a great first step to tackling the need to be vulnerable head-on.
In Part 3, we’ll unpack a different exercise and see where that one takes us.
Until then, have you done this exercise? How did it go? What did you discover? Where was your private space? Comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts. You don’t, of course, need to share your shame.
FAQ
Use caution. The exercise includes a trigger warning for a reason — if a memory feels too distressing to approach, it’s fine to choose an easier one instead, or skip the exercise and speak with a trusted person or professional if needed.
Destroying the page removes the fear of being read, which for many people is what blocks genuine vulnerability in the first place. Knowing the words will disappear within minutes makes it safer to write the true version rather than a self-censored one.
The exercise works best with specifics — real names, ages, dates — because vagueness is often exactly what allows self-censorship to creep back in. If specifics feel too risky, it’s fine to start with a lower-stakes memory rather than staying vague on a high-stakes one.
That’s common and not a failure. It may mean the memory chosen wasn’t quite the right one, or that the exercise needs repeating, or that it’s simply the wrong exercise for you at this time — there’s no single correct emotional outcome.
Yes — in fact, doing it multiple times with different memories, or returning to it later once you’re more comfortable with the vulnerability it asks for, is expected and encouraged.
Get in touch
If you’d like to chat about how I might help you find your unique writing voice, send me an email at hello@wordservings.com or click the button.
*All images on this page are AI-assisted
