The Blogging Therapy posts have given birth to all kinds of commotion in my inbox.

And since I compulsively have to share things with you, today’s awesome and anonymous Ask Havi question is pulled — with the asker’s permission, of course — out of that file.

If you haven’t been keeping up with the Blogging Therapy posts, no worries. Jump right on in. We were talking last time about anonymity and the fear of being known or discovered.

More on this whole fear of being known thing.

Also known as fear of love.

Thank you so much for these posts. You keep saying stuff in a particular way that NO ONE ELSE does — you definitely speak my language. I have serious lightbulbs flashing almost every time I read something you write.

Some of my recent favorites have been your Blogging Therapy posts which shoot straight to my heart because I’ve been thinking about starting a blog.

Actually, I have started a blog, only it’s password-protected and just my super-secret hidden thing right now.

Anyway, my question is basically the opposite of “Why aren’t my friends reading my blog?”

And that is OH GOD WHAT DO I DO IF SOMEONE I KNOW IN REAL LIFE READS IT?

(I know I could go anonymous but I think that would just lead to paranoia surrounding keeping it secret…)

Pouring out stuff to random strangers on the internet doesn’t seem weird to me at all. But if I run into someone I know at my neighborhood coffeeshop, and they mention my blog, and then I know that they know all this STUFF about me? My cheeks are red just thinking about it. 

Oh! And the worst part. My boyfriend’s ex, who maybe doesn’t have super-positive feelings about me, I know occasionally searches for me online. In my dark fantasy world, I put this blog out there, maybe get a little vulnerable and real, talk about my truth, and my audience consists of absolutely NO ONE but my boyfriend’s ex.

That is seriously the voice I hear whenever I’m writing anything and consider putting it out there. Crazy huh?

Oh, not crazy at all. This sounds pretty normal to me!

It actually reminds me of my biggest fear when I first launched my site — that people from my old super-cool hipster bartender life would end up reading it and mocking me mercilessly for having become a cheesy embarrassing yoga person.

And I’m sure that’s totally happened.

Things to keep in mind.

You don’t have to write about everything.

Good grief. I have all sorts of things that are off-limits.

You may have noticed that I don’t mention my family much. Exactly.

There are all sorts of things that I may write about someday, but if it happens, it will be a. after I’ve done a lot more healing and b. many, many years after a lot of people are gone. And even then I don’t know if that’s really stuff I want to share.

The act of writing is — in and of itself — healing.

That means that you can write stuff you don’t publish.

And you can write stuff that — through the act of being published and going out to the world — resolves some of your stuckification around those memories.

I’ve experienced that here so many times. I’ve written about something hard and painful and people have shown up with so much love and support that it’s completely overwhelming.

You start to realize, ohmygosh, I’m surrounded by people who are also in this process of working on their stuff. My insights are relevant to them. My pain is their pain.

It stops being so scary, because you realize that your own process has value. That your collection of scars is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness.

This is about the fear of being known.

And the fear of being known is about love. About not being able to be loved. About not feeling worthy of being loved. Or suspecting that you’re not worthy of being loved.

A very, very human thing.

The fear says that if people know what we’re really like, they couldn’t possibly love us for who we are. Or at all, for that matter.

And so we find ways to close ourselves off from people who would love us. And from ourselves. And from moments of intimacy and connection.

So part of working on this pattern is allowing yourself to feel safe not wanting to be loved. It’s okay. Eventually you’ll get to the point where you do feel safe being loved and adored.

Right now though, it’s absolutely fine to notice that you’re not at a point where you’re ready to receive. You’re at a point where all you can do is notice where you’re at and be patient with that.

Even though we’re not ready to be known (yet), we’re practicing.

We’re practicing letting ourselves be human. We’re practicing noticing our pain and giving that pain some attention. We’re practicing noticing what we need and asking for it. That’s where we are.

Dark, creepy fantasies about people hating you? Completely normal.

You’re not alone.

Not in the tiniest bit.

In fact, let’s all share some of our horrible, sick, twisted shameful fear-driven blogging fantasies.

I’ll go first. And then I challenge you to come up with something at least as embarrassing!

Here we go.

Scenario 1. In which I get exposed as a horrible person …
My ex-husband (or someone in his family or his new wife) finds this blog and is appalled and horrified that someone as psychotic as me would dare to give anyone advice on anything, ever.

Then of course they out me as the awful person they know me to be.

They jump right in to the comments and point out that I was a terrible wife, by any standard. That I was drunk a lot of the time, emotionally unavailable all the time, refused to even consider quitting smoking and was generally … shall we say erratic in my behavior, at best.

They then add that you are all complete morons to be deceived by someone like me, and that even though I look really sweet and have a duck on my shoulder, it’s all an act.

Scenario 2. In which I get bawled out and don’t even understand why …
My parents, who hardly ever read this, randomly stop by today and throw a fit, as is their wont, about some tiny, obscure aspect that I never would have even thought of as being problematic or controversial.

Honestly, now that I think about it … I cannot believe that this hasn’t already happened at least a hundred times.

Scenario 3. In which I and everything about me are lame and embarrassing…
Obviously the current girlfriend of my ex (not my ex-husband, I mean the one who broke my heart) is way too cool to ever read this blog or even care, but somehow she hears about it.

And what cracks her up completely is that my ex ever could have been in love with someone as thoroughly square and hopelessly embarrassing as me. And then he tries to explain that I used to be hot and witty and mean but I lost my charm.

How the whole city of Tel Aviv was insanely in love with me, and I rolled filterless cigarettes and got in fights with people and could drink everyone but the Russians under the table. And even some of the Russians.

Then I got hooked on yoga and then became a businesswoman and isn’t it tragic that I suck so much?

And then they share a sweet, existential moment and feel completely sorry for me.

And of course they’re in Paris or Amsterdam or something, leading the kind of cosmopolitan, bohemian intellectual life that I used to live before I became the kind of person who goes to bed at 9pm and keeps a toy duck for company.

I could go on.

Oh, how I could go on. But I won’t. It’s your turn.

I know you’re thinking, this isn’t funny at all. What if these things actually happen?

Well, they might. It’s not all that likely but it could come to pass that one of the made-up things we dread could actually happen.

And if it does, you’ll deal with it. Your readers (because by then you’ll totally have readers) will stand by you. Not just by you but up for you.

You’ll find strength in the people that you are helping, in the ways your words have made a difference. And you’ll remember that anyone who doesn’t get that has bigger issues than just not liking your blog.

You’ll remember that this process of learning to practice vulnerability while still keeping yourself safe is a pretty big deal. That the practice is the thing that sustains you.

It’s the thing that brings you closer to yourself.

And the nice thing about being close to yourself is that it makes it a lot easier to release the need for outside legitimacy (aka to not give a flying fig what anyone else thinks about you).

Easier said than done, yes. But that’s why we’re here.