Face the Fear, Suzanne’s story: Suzanne faces her fears by reliving her life story.

As part of my new blog series, Face the Fear, I will be interviewing women about how they have faced their fears and what they went through to get to where they are now.

This series is tapping into the minds of incredible women, who have one way or another faced their fears. You can read the original Face the Fear blog post to find out why I wanted to write this and what my own fears are.

Today I’m interviewing Suzanne, she is facing her fears by reliving her life story. You can find on her Twitter @SuzanneLudlum, Blog animperfectpilgrim.com and Instagram @yogamama2021.

Tell me a bit about yourself? What do you do, what do you love, where are you from?

I am an author, conference presenter, international trainer, certified yoga therapist, warrior.  I work with people who have mental illness and histories of trauma, utilizing mind-body practices to help my clients empower themselves in their healing process. I train mental health clinicians, yoga therapists, and yoga teachers to be trauma-informed and how to bring these specific practices into their work.

I live along the shores of Lake Mooney in historic Fredericksburg, Virginia with my husband and daughter, where the tranquil and peaceful setting offers many opportunities for healing.

What is the fear you’re going to be writing about today?

The fear I’m going to write about is the fear of re-living my life in order to write my memoir.

How long have you had this fear/what made it start to develop?

I always knew I would one day write a book, but what I didn’t know was that most of what I would write had not yet been lived.  I sensed the book would somehow be related to my life, but I was completely unaware and unprepared for the direction in which I was headed and how it would bring me to the verge of mental and physical destruction.

The fear began to develop when, after decades of loss, trauma, abuse, and tragedy, I had recovered enough to go on living.  I then knew what I had to do: share my story.  Memoir writers live twice.  And the first time was horrific, so I asked myself, Why do it?

When/why did you realise you had to face your fear?

A realization that not sharing my journey and the life-giving lessons I learned along the way would have rendered my experience worthless.  To give my life value, I had to share it, all of it:  the shame, the guilt, the abuse, the pain, the hopelessness, and finally, the source of the courage and wisdom–and people that crossed my path–that helped me climb to a better place.  I realized that the value of writing my story would be to inspire hope in others.

How did you face your fear?

The act of re-living my life through the writing experience absolutely terrified me, but I realized I really had no choice. Spreading
a message of hope by bringing others along as I re-lived it all became bigger than me. So I finally put pen to paper and, little by little began to write.  A chapter here, a couple of pages there.  Writing out of chronological sequence made it somewhat easier to go back in time.

I believed that if my story would help just one person…keep them off the ledge, allow them to believe that what they are going through isn’t their forever place and that they are not alone, that there IS a tomorrow and it can be a wonderful and joyful time…then writing this book would have been worth it.  I threw it out there as a message in a bottle, and the reviews and feedback I’ve received have validated my belief.

There’s a story about a man who fell down into a deep, dark hole.  He couldn’t climb out.  A doctor was walking by and the man yelled up, “Hey doc, I’m stuck down here and can’t get out.  Can you help me?”  The doctor threw down a prescription and kept on walking.  A few minutes later, a minister walked by.  The man yelled up, “Hey Father, I’m stuck down here and can’t get up!  Please, can you help me?”  The minister threw down a prayer and kept on walking.

A few minutes later, a friend walked by.  Again, the man yelled up the same plea.  The friend then jumped down into the hole.  The man said, “Are you nuts?! Now we’re BOTH down here!”  The friend said, “Yeah, but I’ve been here before.  And I know a way out.”

This is what my book is for.  In service to all who are suffering, Hang On, Pain Ends (H.O.P.E.).

Thank you so much to Suzanne for sharing her story with me as part of my Face the Fear blog series. 

If you’d like to get involved in this blog series, please email me at beth@booksnest.co.uk and I’ll send you through everything you need.