This might be cringe: The sentence I carried with me (Part 2)

Failure hits different when your heart’s in the room.

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Chapter 10

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in…

— Anthem, Song by Leonard Cohen ‧ 1992

Some people avoid love. Others avoid conflict.

Writers avoid the blank page. And creators the first step.

We often call it “thinking,” “refining,” “strategizing,” or “preparing.” And we’re so good at it. Masters at making hesitation look noble. But to be honest, most of the time? It’s just fear in a clever disguise. It’s a memory of the time we shared too much and got met with silence, or worse, indifference. It’s a scar shaped like a shrug from someone who should’ve clapped.

We all do it.

And I’ve never seen it more clearly than I have since starting this messy little online journey, first on LinkedIn six months ago, and now here on Substack. Avoidance wears many hats. It shows up in whispers that sound responsible:

“I should probably do more research.”

“Let me clean the house first.”

“Today is not a good day, I’ll start on Monday.”

“What if I get feedback before I’ve figured it all out?”

But underneath all that? It’s the body memory of almost being seen, and paying for it. It’s the betrayal of sharing the softest part of you and being met with a blank stare.

And that’s why sometimes I still remember than man from my childhood, the homeless guy, the one with the foggy eyes, draped in a blanket of the world’s regret, who grabbed my arms and said:

“Human flesh is the most useless meat of all.”

The most useless meat of all: The sentence I carried with me (Part 1)

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At the time, I thought he meant the body. Now I wonder if he meant the risk of having one. Of walking through the world in skin. Of letting people see the thing that bleeds, shakes, desires, and still dares to speak.

Because isn’t that what vulnerability really is?

A body that dares to show up in a world that might not love it back?

And creativity? She’s the foolish, reckless heart that does it anyway.

Here what no one tells you about vulnerability: It doesn’t always feel profound or poetic. It doesn’t glide in like moonlight or hum like a Leonard Cohen lyric. It often feels like nausea and regret. And other times, like risk, raw and unglamorous. Scary and tedious.

Like opening your chest in public and hoping no one laughs. Or worse, scrolls past.

You sit with the silence after sharing something real. Refreshing. Recoiling. Regretting. You tell yourself you’re fine. But your nervous system doesn’t believe you.

Vulnerability feels less like softness, and more like survival. More like scar tissue that never stopped bracing for rejection. And that’s where we start this part of the story.

Not in the moment of bravery. But in the moment right after. When the applause doesn’t come. When the approval stays quiet. When your courage doesn’t trend and your nervous system goes on survival mode.

It’s about discovering the strength that shows up when no one else does. And if you’re an HSP (High Sensitive Person) or an empath like me?

That silence doesn’t just echo, it amplifies. You don’t feel the weight of your own vulnerability. You feel the collective ache. The imagined disappointment. The energy in the room, physical or virtual. Because when your nervous system is wired for depth, everything hits deeper. But that also means your courage counts double.

It’s not business, it’s personal

People think writing is brave. But the bravest part? Hitting publish.

Every time I write something that matters, it feels more like sending my inner monologue into a group chat, not knowing who’s going to screenshot it and sell it for half-price on the internet. It’s me, running in emotional slow motion through a crowded square, naked and half-dressed in confidence, with a Post-it on my chest that reads:

“Here lies a piece of me, I'm still learning how to love me, and the world. Be gentle.”

Because when your work is personal and it carries your heart, you’re not just sharing the thing you made. You’re sharing the you who made it. People don’t just read what you wrote. They read you. They scan your fears, your opinions, your hesitations. They clock the shaky confidence, the half-formed thought, the part of you that’s still trying to figure it out. And that’s the hardest part, when you’re still becoming, but the world is already watching.

I’ve sat on drafts for weeks. Rewritten headlines until they lost their voice. I’ve hit publish, only to take it all down minutes later, haunted by the imagined eye-roll of an ex-boyfriend, an old colleague, a friend from a former life. People who no longer know me, but whose judgment I still carry like a warning label stitched to my confidence. I’ve checked back on articles 40 times in an hour, just to feel something.

And every single time, I thought: “Damn, I shouldn’t have posted that.”

“What if this is the sentence that undoes me?”

That’s when it gets personal. Failure, when it brushes up against identity, doesn’t just bruise your confidence, it questions your becoming.

You don’t lose an opportunity. You lose a version of yourself you were secretly rooting for. And then, to cope, you do what many of us do: You turn the pain into punchlines. You roast your own ambition before anyone else can.

You call it cringe. And laugh. And shrink. But let’s be honest, that joke? That’s copying mechanism. Because if you mock it first, maybe it won’t hurt so much when no one claps. Because disappointment feels a little safer when you deliver it with a wink and a self-deprecating shrug.

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The pieces I’ve poured the most soul into? They’re the ones I nearly archived. They were true. Personal. And that’s the scariest kind of writing. Because we’re not really afraid of sharing bad work. We’re afraid of sharing honest work and having it met with silence. We’re afraid someone will see the best of us and still say: “Meh.”

We’re afraid of being fully seen…and then dismissed as we are.

That, my friends?

That’s the holy ache of vulnerability.

It’s why so many of us live in draft mode.

Of art. Of self. Of life.

We tell ourselves we’re just editing. Waiting for the timing to be right. But more often, we’re just scared that what we’ve made is too us. And we’re terrified of sharing it with the world. That’s the emotional scar tissue we talked about in Part 1. Your nervous system remembers where it got burned. It shows up as perfectionism, delay, hiding behind “I’m still working on it.”

But it’s not because you’re not ready. It’s because what you’ve made is too close to who you are. And it’s okay. Because naming it is the first crack in the armor.

And through the crack? The truth gets to breathe.

If you’re sitting on a draft right now, a poem, a pitch, a project, or a version of yourself that’s asking to come alive…I get it. Truly.

You don’t owe anyone your vulnerability. But you might owe it to yourself to see what happens if you don’t run this time. You might owe it to the version of you who was told to shrink. To play it safe. To the one who was praised more for being quiet than for being honest. You owe yourself the next try. The next paragraph. The next shaky chapter.

And if it lands in silence? So be it.

You were still loud enough to hit publish.

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The art of cringe

Vulnerability is messy. Sticky. Embarrassing. Cringe-adjacent. The moment after you tell the truth…and the room goes quiet. The rejection email that lands after you finally pitched the thing, or the loss of a job you’d already started picturing your life around.

It doesn’t always feel like courage. Sometimes it feels like humiliation…big time. You have just exposed your softest truth in a world built for performance and polish. It’s the moment that makes you want to crawl back into your own draft folder.

Let me tell you about the science behind that fear, the one you feel after hitting publish? That ache in your chest, the heat in your face, the urge to disappear? It’s not just “in your head.” It’s in your nervous system.

Psychologists call it neuroception, your body’s unconscious way of scanning for safety or threat, even when no physical danger is present. So when you share something vulnerable, something that feels tied to your identity, your brain doesn’t always differentiate between social risk and actual danger.

It reacts the same way: Fight. Flight. Freeze. Fawn.

Posting something personal? That’s a social risk. And your nervous system? It remembers all the times that risk didn’t end well. The class that laughed when your voice cracked. The adult who dismissed your enthusiasm. The silence after a truth you shared too early. So even now, when you’re safe, at your laptop, in your living room, your body braces for impact.

Not because you’re weak. But because you’re wired for belonging. And rejection, even imagined, hurts like a bruise to the soul.

That’s why vulnerability feels like chaos. Like your skin doesn’t fit. Like you suddenly forgot how to hold yourself together. Because in that moment, your body thinks something dangerous is happening.

“Our brains are prediction machines,” says neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett.

They don’t just react, they anticipate. And that means we can teach them new endings. New ways to hold ourselves when the story gets scary. The more you show up, the more your nervous system learns:

You survived.

You’re safe.

You can tell the truth and still belong.

You don’t need to numb it. Or outgrow it. Or turn it into a performance. You just need to stay long enough to prove the fear wrong.

So if you feel like your chest is buzzing and your self-worth just threw itself into oncoming traffic…Breathe.

It’s not a sign to stop. It’s a sign you’re rewiring something. That’s how you become a braver storyteller. Not in theory, but in practice.

One day, you’ll look back on something you created and whisper:

“Oh my god, who let me post that?”

Well, that’s not failure. That’s evidence. Proof you reached. Proof you risked. Cringe is creativity’s stretch mark. It means you didn’t stay frozen. It means you moved.

And no, it’s not comfortable. But neither is becoming.

And the people who never cringe at their past selves?

They’re probably never left home for years.

Self-witnessing: The antidote to shame

We’re taught to believe the antidote to shame is success.

A standing ovation. A viral post. A mentor clapping in the front row, saying, “I always knew you had it in you.” But the problem with this picture?

That kind of validation is external. Conditional. Fleeting. It works…until it doesn’t. Until the applause stops. Until the metrics dip. Until no one claps this time.

What actually softens shame? Presence. The quiet, radical act of witnessing yourself without turning away.

It’s what psychologist Tara Brach calls Radical Acceptance:

“When we can meet our experience and discover the wholeness, wisdom, and love that are our deepest nature.”

It’s what Kristin Neff names Self-Compassion:

“Instead of just ignoring your pain with a ‘stiff upper lip’ or getting swept up in negative spirals, you stop to tell yourself: ‘This is really difficult right now. How can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?’”

That’s what changes things. Not the next win.

But the moment you sit in the aftermath of the loss, the pitch that bombed, the risk that cracked, the rejection and the silence after you shared something tender, and you say: “I still got you. You showed up. And that matters.”

That’s the healing. That’s the resistance. That’s the rewrite.

Because the moment you turn away from yourself, shame wins. And I don’t know about you, but I’m really tired of shame winning.

Stay present

You know what I think is more impressive than a standing ovation? Creating something when no one’s looking. No audience. No praise. No guaranteed outcome.

Just you, your idea, and the quiet, flickering belief that it matters, even if no one ever sees it. That’s the part no one claps for.

And paradoxically? It might just be the bravest part.

Psychologists call this intrinsic motivation, the drive to act not for external reward, but because the act itself feels meaningful. According to Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan), humans are most fulfilled not when we’re being recognized, but when we’re acting from a sense of autonomy, purpose, and alignment.

This kind of motivation doesn’t fuel viral content. It fuels real content. Work born from curiosity, not clicks. Work that emerges not from applause, but from authenticity.

And here’s where it gets fascinating: Studies show that the more we chase external approval, the more our willingness to take creative risks declines. Why?

Because our nervous system starts to associate visibility with danger. Every piece is a performance. Every failure, a threat.

As neuroscientist Caroline Leaf explains, the brain’s protective systems can trigger a threat response when vulnerability meets judgment.

But when you create without a witness? You teach your brain a new truth. You tell it that self-expression is safe. That creativity isn’t danger, it’s home. And that rewiring? That’s how courage is built. That’s how the scar tissue softens.

So no, the internet won’t clap for that first messy draft.

It won’t give you a trophy for the quiet morning you spent working on something that might never see the light. But you will feel something else: Integrity.

A thread between your inner world and your outer one, unbroken.

That’s worth more than a standing ovation.

And maybe that’s what we’re all really hungry for.

Not visibility.

Not virality.

But wholeness.

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Dear Serif: The love letter I didn’t mean to write

Human flesh and the myth of worth

Sometimes, I still hear his voice. “Human flesh is the most useless meat of all.”

At thirteen, I thought it was a warning. Now I think it was mourning. Not for the body. But for what the world does to it.

We commodify flesh. We dress it in titles, filter it into bios, sculpt it into relevance. We grind down the soul into slogans just to earn the right to exist. We wrap our worth in applause. We tie our value to visibility. We believe the myth: You are only as good as what you can prove.

But what if that man wasn't condemning flesh? What if he was naming the grief of living in it, in a system that refuses to see the person inside the skin?

We’ve turned humanity into performance. And vulnerability? Into a strategy.

But here’s the truth I’m trying to hold: Your art doesn’t need to trend to be valid. Your voice doesn’t need to be retweeted to be real. Or restacked or shared. Your scars don’t need to be marketable to be meaningful.

They exist to remind you: you’re alive. Still becoming. Still reaching. Still risking.

And on some days? That aliveness feels like too much. Too visible. Too soft. Too strange. Too unfinished. Too…me.

But I show up anyway.

Because I’ve lived the alternative: The polished version of myself who said all the right things and risked absolutely nothing. The one who looked successful on the outside, because she was too afraid to say anything real.

That wasn’t safety. That was suffocation.

So now? I choose cringe. I choose the shaky post, the weird sentence, the profound newsletter, the open ribcage. I choose to hit publish before I feel ready.

Because failure that’s honest is still intimacy. And silence that follows your truth is still a kind of power. I’d rather fail trying to be seen, than succeed by disappearing.

So if you’re feeling too raw, too much, too messy to be understood, good.

You’re probably closer to something real than you think.

“You will fail. And fail again. And sometimes your failure will be public, awkward, and humiliating. Do it anyway.”

— (something I wish someone had told my younger self)

Closing: A soft invitation

Vulnerability: The state of standing unarmored in a world that prefers masks.

Not weakness, but openness with consequences. It’s the risk of letting someone see you before you’ve figured out how to sell it. Before the edit. Before the proof. Before the glow-up.

It’s the trembling voice, the ugly draft, the paragraph you almost deleted because it was too much and somehow still not enough. It’s the “here I am” that arrives before the “is this okay?” can catch up. And yes, it might cost you something.

A blush. A silence. A rejection. A comment that hits too close. But you know what it will give you?

A life that doesn’t vanish in the edit. A voice you don’t have to rehearse. A seat at your own table, unfolding, unfinished, unfiltered.

That’s what I want now. Not applause. Not performance.

Just this: To be real enough to scare myself.

To be soft enough to stay. So if you’ve been waiting for someone to hand you permission, to say: “Yes, that messy truth of yours? It counts.” Let this be it.

You don’t need to be less sensitive. Less intense. Less much. You just need to stop hiding the parts you secretly hope someone will love you for.

Vulnerability isn’t the danger.

It’s the doorway.

And this?

This is your knock.

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Coming up next:

We ask a question the world rarely gives us space for: What does it mean to like yourself in a system designed to keep you doubting?

We talk about self-love. The soft, slow kind, that doesn’t need an audience.

The kind that says: “Even without proof, I am still worthy.”

Until then,

Stay soft. Stay messy. Stay brave.

Gloriously yours,

Eleni

I opened this chapter with lyrics from Leonard Cohen’s Anthem, not just for poetic flair, but because it reminds me that perfection was never the point. It’s one of my favorite songs. If you don’t know it yet, do yourself a favor and listen. And if you have, well, you know. Those words never stop finding new ways to hold you.

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Don’t go just yet. One last thing before you head back to your day, and thank you, truly, if you made it all the way here.

I’m working on something new. A little book maybe. We’ll see.

It’s about showing up publicly, navigating the fear of visibility, and learning how to seize the damn day, not just as a feeling, but as a daily practice.

It blends personal stories, science-backed insights, and small, practical tools for the moments when your voice shakes, your doubt is louder than your courage, and your nervous system wants to bolt.

The truths we often whisper but rarely write down: Why our brains beg us to hide, how to keep going when it’s quiet, why courage isn’t loud, it’s consistent.

→Would you want to read that?

More importantly, what would you want to see inside?

✨ Anything you wish someone had told you sooner?

✨ A question or moment you hope it explores?

✨ A fear you’ve never put into words?

Would love to hear from you, especially if you’ve ever hesitated for months, years, or even decades to show up and be seen. Whether it was your voice, your art, your truth, or just you.

Hit me with your stories. Or DM me if that feels safer.

I’d genuinely love to know what held you back, and what finally moved you forward.

I may be gathering a few of these to include (with your blessing, of course) in the book, because your story might be the gentle nudge someone else needs to finally step into theirs…or just feel a little less alone in the process.

Let me know if you’re in. Hit reply. Drop a comment. Send a signal. Thank you :)

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Every Monday at 12:30 CEST, the Glorious Fail will meet you where you are, ready to disrupt, challenge, and rebrand failure.

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