Not for the Faint of Heart (That’s How I Knew It Mattered)

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
— Anaïs Nin

I submitted my book this week … and I realized something I didn’t expect to feel so deeply:

This wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Not mine.
Not anyone’s.

Because submitting a book isn’t just uploading files and clicking a button. It’s not simply “done.” It’s not a tidy finish line with confetti and a clean exhale.

It’s a threshold.

It’s standing in the doorway of something you made with your own hands and your own history, holding it out into the world, and realizing … this is real now.

And suddenly, it hits you.

This isn’t just a project.
This is a piece of your life.

The truth is … I felt exposed.

I don’t mean in a dramatic way. I mean in a quiet, honest way.

Like the kind of vulnerability that doesn’t announce itself.
It just shows up in your body.

A tight chest.
A lump in your throat.
A long stare at the screen.

Because when you’ve poured yourself into something that carries memory, grief, legacy, love, and the type of healing you can’t always explain … you don’t hit “submit” and skip away like it’s nothing.

You hit submit and realize you’ve offered your heart in public.

And for a moment, you wonder if you should pull it back.

But here’s what I know now:

If it scares me to share it, that’s usually the part someone needs most.

Not the polished part.
Not the perfect part.
Not the “look how productive I’ve been” part.

The real part.

The part that cost me something.
The part that required tenderness.
The part that asked me to be brave in a way that had nothing to do with confidence.

Because confidence is loud.

But courage … courage is often quiet.

Courage looks like showing up even when your voice shakes.
Courage looks like creating anyway.
Courage looks like saying, “This matters,” even when you’re not sure who will understand it.

This book asked more of me than I expected.

I knew Tattered & Mended would be meaningful. I knew it would be personal.

But I don’t think I fully realized how much it would ask of me until I reached this moment.

Because the stories inside it aren’t just words on paper. They are lived. They are carried.

They hold the ache of missing someone.
The strange holiness of keeping what remains.
The way grief lives in the fabric of ordinary things.

And they hold something else too:

The beauty of transformation.

The way a piece of cloth can become a keepsake.
The way a garment can become a story.
The way a woman can become herself again, one stitch at a time.

The fear didn’t mean I was doing it wrong.

This week reminded me that fear isn’t always a warning sign.

Sometimes fear is simply the nervous system recognizing:

“This is big.”
“This is sacred.”
“This is new.”

Sometimes fear is the cost of stepping into visibility.

Sometimes it’s the price of letting something private become shared.

And sometimes it’s proof that what you’re doing has weight, and meaning, and a pulse.

Not for the faint of heart… but for the willing.

For the ones who have lived through hard things and still believe in beauty.

For the ones who are learning how to carry love and loss in the same hands.

For the ones who are tired of rushing past their own feelings.

For the ones who want to make something meaningful out of what remains.

This is what I keep coming back to:

The things that matter most rarely come easy. They come honest.

And maybe that’s the whole point.

A gentle reflection for you (if you’re in a brave season too)

If you’ve ever stood at the edge of something you created … and felt that same tender fear, I want to ask you this:

What are you holding back because it matters so much?
And what might happen if you let it be seen anyway?

Because maybe the trembling doesn’t mean you’re not ready.

Maybe it means you’re standing in the exact place where growth begins.

And maybe, just maybe …

Not being faint of heart is simply another way of saying: You’re alive. You’re healing. You’re becoming.

“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen …”
— Brené Brown

What’s one brave thing you’ve done recently that didn’t feel “easy” … but felt true?