The one about Taylor Swift and boundaries
This post was originally written + published in the Dec 11/20 edition of The Friday Feels.
A couple big things happened this week.
First of all, it was my birthday yesterday. (Thank you.) I turned 33 which felt like a really big deal for some reason.
The other thing that happened ("coincidentally" on my birthday) was that Taylor Swift surprise released another album.
This makes my Swifty heart a-flutter.
(And full disclosure: I excited cried when I found out. Real tears. I'm not ashamed.)
This was exciting for several reasons. For one, folklore was released less than five months ago and it was already a masterpiece. Taylor delivered a lyrically exquisite collection of stories that were written to help her audience access feelings that they otherwise wouldn't be able to reach.
Lockdown suddently cut us off from the usual rhythms and rituals that we had in place to deal with the stressors in life. Much of that loss included our connection to other human beings — when that was removed, we collectively struggled.
A lot of us didn't know what to do with the feelings that came to the surface — especially the feelings that hurt. We were feeling (and still are feeling) a deep sense of loss and grief around the events of 2020.
That's where Taylor Swift delivers.
She uses her music and songwriting to transport us to the places where our feelings live.
I mean, I know that I spent many hours this past summer going for long walks, listening to folklore and crying. (You all know that I recommend a good cry on the regular — feel it to heal it!!)
For my birthday, she surprised us all again by delivering folklore's sister album: evermore.
Now. A few people asked me to do (i.e. I told them that I would be doing) a review of evermore for The Friday Feels this week, but as per usual, I changed my mind — partially because I wanted to listen to the album a few more times before deciding how I feel about it, and, partially because I want to talk about Taylor Swift's storytelling and what it have to do with boundaries.
More specifically, I want to talk about Taylor Swift's boundaries around sharing + storytelling over the course of her career, because I think that's something a lot of us struggle with — especially with social media and knowing how much sharing is "appropriate," or how much other people "deserve" to know about your life, or whether or not you feel equipped to deal with the potential "backlash" of what people think or feel about what you said.
It's enough to keep many of us from saying anything at all.
But that doesn't help anyone because one thing we know to be true is that there's power in our stories — and we feel less alone when we know that our experiences are shared, even if we're worlds apart. When we can share the ways that we've overcome and the lessons we're learning along the way, we grow stronger together. And.
We've all been on the other side of an overshare. Because as Brenè Brown says, vulnerability without boundaries is just disclosure.
"Vulnerability is not oversharing, it's not purging, it's not indiscriminate disclosure, and it's not celebrity-style social media information dumps. Vulnerability is about sharing our feelings and our experiences with people who have earned the right to hear them.
Being vulnerable and open is mutual and an integral part of the trust-building process.... Vulnerability without boundaries leads to disconnection, distrust, and disengagement."
What really brought this concept into focus for me is what Nadia-Bolz Weber told Glennon Doyle when she was writing her memoir Love Warrior:
"If you're going to share widely — make sure you're sharing from your scars, not from your open wounds."
Share from the scar, not from the wound.
Glennon wrote about intensely personal experiences in her memoir, but not until she had enough distance to look at things objectively.
As she wrote and rewrote the book, she continuously asked herself:
"How is this not just about me, but about the reader? About all of us? How can I turn my personal story into something universal? I sifted through my own pain and mined it for gold to share with others.
When we truth-tell widely in real time it's alarming to people because it can feel more like a cry for help than an act of service. You have to be still with your pain before you can offer it up and use it to serve and connect with people you don't know."
That's one of the "strikes" that people have given Taylor in the past — they felt that her writing was rooted in anger and getting revenge...and maybe it was because she started writing songs when she was a child. I mean, if my teenage musings became multiple-award-winning sensations, the content would probably have people calling me dramatic too.
(Spoiler: I am.)
The reality is that we don't often have the tools to process and heal our pain when we're young, and, we don't have the benefit of the perspective that comes with time.
Of course, Taylor's fans never thought her sharing was too much...it was exactly what we all needed at the time. And she's given us exactly what we needed again with folklore and evermore — collections that are a far cry from the songs of her youth.
She's uncovering the shared truths in our stories.
And it's helping us heal.
Before creating the space to process and sift through the pain to find the gold, our stories are still very personal. We are in reactivity mode, trying to figure out what we feel and think, how much of it is real, and what's worth holding on to versus what it's time to let go.
When we're healing, we are still in the experience and haven't gotten the takeaway from it.
And because of the pressure to share what we've learned, or maybe the discomfort of sitting in the pain of the unknown, we try to rush the process and gold-plate our grit...but in that rush, we miss uncovering the most critical component: The shared truth.
The invisible string tying you to me.
The lessons that emerge from the ashes of the hard times are the ones that change our lives.
But we have to be able to sit through the fire.
All of that to say...I think that that thing of of finding and sharing universal truth is something that Taylor as an artist has learned to do really well over the years, and that her storytelling has become less about her, and more about all of us.
So. The official album review will have to wait until I get another 27 listens under my belt. And until then...
Thank you, Taylor Swift.
For being brave enough to share your story and the healing you experienced along the way (see also: Miss Americana on Netflix), and for giving us a channel to feel the feelings we've been trying to avoid...but so desperately need to feel.
And now...
Go listen to evermore — or do whatever it is that helps you access and unlock the things that you feel, even if those feelings scare you.
Because your feelings won't kill you...but ignoring them will rob you of so much in life.