Hi, I'm Danyell. Nice to meet you.

After years of being told I have a way with words; I have finally tackled my limited beliefs and
decided to bet on myself. Welcome to Hard Truths To Myself–a blog dedicated to all the notes I’ve written to myself along my journey. My hope is that these hard truths to myself, help you too.

Writing has always been my outlet for expressing myself. As the eldest daughter, I’ve struggled with self-expression (if you can relate, I’m sending you lots of love).
I can recall the day I stopped writing in my journal as a kid. My cousin read an entry I wrote
about a boy and told my mom. The consequences that followed deterred me from ever writing again. I went years without writing; bottling up every emotion and pretending to be strong. I went years feeling so low. I didn't write again until February of 2012.

 

I had just lost my great grandma and I was drowning in my emotions. Everyone around me seemed to be moving on pretty quickly or they never allowed themselves to grieve at all. Either way, I was suffering. At the time, writing in a journal still terrified me so I went to my notes app on my phone and wrote her a love note on Valentine's Day. You would think that sparked my interest for writing again, but it didn’t. It also didn't help that my teacher's feedback on style of writing would later create limited beliefs around why it
has taken me so long to create this blog.

Fast forward to 2019/2020, I started my inner work journey and my therapist at the time
recommended that I get a journal. It led me to writing a journal entry about my emotions.
The entry read:

“I’m spending most of my days alone, so I’m feeling a lot! I’m learning to allow myself to feel and it hasn’t been easy. I have found myself wanting to runbut I’ve been doing that for so long and I’m tired. Growing up I felt I was never allowed to express my emotions. My mothers reactions always scared me. Crying has always been healing for me. Lock the door, sit and cry. Stand in the shower, let the water hit my face and cry. Play music, sing and cry. Grab my journal or phone, write and cry. Unless someone did something to me, my mom would always say, “shut up or I'll give you something to cry about.” That conditioned me to hide my tears. In elementary school, my mom had to come to the school frequently due to me being bullied. Before every meeting with the staff, my mom would remind me to wait afterwards before crying. That never happened, and each time I felt like I failed her.
Each time, it made me question why I cried so much. Each time, it made me never want to feel anything at all. And I did just that. As I got older, the thought of feeling soft for anything scared me. If anyone would show interest, I would run. I’d find every reason to cut them off. I was also afraid of feeling for a person and getting hurt.”

This was the beginning of my finding my voice again–through my writing. I began to write about any and everything I felt coming up. I began to ask myself hard questions and write the hard truths. I began to share some of my pieces and people asked for more. It has taken me four years to get out of my own way and bet on myself.
 

So again, welcome to Hard Truths To Myself. Each piece, I’m writing for us.

This journey is not linear and I am here to walk with you. We will talk about all the good and ugly of this journey called life.