Why Telling Your Story Matters - Especially Now

There are moments in history when everything feels too heavy to hold.

When the news feels relentless, when uncertainty crowds your mind, and when survival feels more urgent than creativity, many people quietly ask themselves: Does my story even matter right now?

The honest answer is: yes — and perhaps more than ever.

Silence Has Always Been Convenient

Silence has always been convenient for systems that benefit from it. For narratives that prefer simplicity over truth. For cultures that value productivity over humanity.

Telling our stories with authority, and without apology, disrupts that. Our stories, no matter how complicated, emotional, or tumultuous they may be, prevent erasure and solidify what happened.

Because memoir is your lived experience, it’s power and purpose preserves the truth. You may think it’s indulgent or haughty to talk about your experiences. It’s actually the opposite, because writing your memoir isn’t about seeking the spotlight, or highlighting your importance. It’s the act of documenting what happend.

It’s about saying:
“This is what it looked like from where I stood.”
“This is what it felt like to be me.”
“This is what happened — and this is how it changed me.”

Instead of indulgence, it’s preservation, resistance. and truth.

You Don’t Write After the Storm

So often in life, we wait for the perfect time to do something. When a project is finished, when things calm down, when the kids are grown. Perfect timing doesn’t exist, which means that it’s always an appropriate time to tell the truth. That’s not to say our words and writing doesn’t need to be well-crafted. The book you are writing must be structured, organized, and thematic. But your story? It’s always time for that. It’s up to you to decide that you will write during the storm that might be this moment in time and through the chaos that dares to silence your voice,

Writing is how we process our feelings and how we make sense of what is happening around us, in our communities, families and in our hearts. Writing memoir is how we remember who we are when the world tries to define us.

Fear Is the Tollbooth to Truth

You might be feeling afraid to tell your story, in the face of the tragic stories that are happening in our communities and throughout the world. You might wonder whether your story holds meaning in the face of much more pressing matters. Deciding to tell you story through memoir doesn’t mean that you’re ignoring what’s happening in the world. So much of what we see on the news begs us to pause, grieve, and even take action. That’s important, and however you move through these trying times is a personal choice. But, if you feel called to do so, you should always choose writing.

Your Story Isn’t Too Small

It’s important to remember that memoir isn’t about trauma Olympics or who suffered most or survived the hardest of circumstances. It’s about transformation. And right now, we are all transforming. Perhaps the world’s events impact how you tell your story. That’s one of the hallmarks of memoir, because if this is the case, you’re demonstrating how you felt in this moment in time. It would be disingenous to write your memoir and not acknowledge the time period we’re living in. Think of the non-fiction books and memoirs you’ve read. It’s someone else’s story, but it’s told amid the backdrop of a particular decade, historical time, or event.

You Don’t Need Perfect Timing — Just Permission

As you navigate this time and strive to stay true to your writing, remember that you don’t need more confidence, clarity, or time. You need to decide that you’ll tell the truth - your version, how the events changed you, and what they meant to you. Remember that sharing your story isn’t a distraction from the truth of what is happening around you. It’s a response.

If you’d like to engage with a community of writers who are aspiring to write their memoirs, you’re invited to join my free Facebook Group, Memoir Magic for Aspiring Authors. Click here to join. I’d love to have you!