I am a writer type. But I didn't always know this about myself. Despite the fact that my childhood days were spent in rich imaginary worlds created from my interior mind, I was writing chapbooks of poetry by sixth grade, over the years I've amassed dozens of journals and notebooks filled with random musings, plus all my email accounts have draft folders filled with writing ideas and lightning snippets that come over me and demand to be written into existence, there is literally no other "work" that both exhausts and rejuvenates me simultaneously, and my go-to, survival coping mechanism during the most difficult days of my life was simply just TO WRITE...still....it took me a long time to accept I was a writer.
I come from a family of writers which both masked the value of writing for me (it was just always a truth so I took it for granted) and led me to reject it (I wanted to go my own way, do my own thing.) Plus, writing is not exactly glamorous. It's rife with rejection, doubt, and frustration. It's hard to explain to others. It requires massive amounts of time staring out a window which doesn't look like productivity to anyone else. It's wadding up pages and screaming at typewriters and breaking pencils. It's the feeling of holding a masterpiece and then throwing it in the trash. To live this way is madness, to defend it to others is more torture.
I come from a family of writers which both masked the value of writing for me (it was just always a truth so I took it for granted) and led me to reject it (I wanted to go my own way, do my own thing.) Plus, writing is not exactly glamorous. It's rife with rejection, doubt, and frustration. It's hard to explain to others. It requires massive amounts of time staring out a window which doesn't look like productivity to anyone else. It's wadding up pages and screaming at typewriters and breaking pencils. It's the feeling of holding a masterpiece and then throwing it in the trash. To live this way is madness, to defend it to others is more torture.
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Sometimes God gives us gifts that take us a while to accept.
Sometimes we have trouble believing in ourselves, but the real truth is, God never asked us to believe in ourselves. He asked us to believe in Him. We are each given a unique gift (or gifts) to contribute to the world around us, it's up to us to get real with ourselves and down to the work of identifying what that is, but the real miracle happens when we invite God to use our gifts for good. |
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In 2017, I finally accepted my fate as a writer and since then I've been using it to do good. To help mental health counselors resonate important concepts to their clients through a lens of compassion, to educate eager minds on concepts in growth and development, and to help everyday people reflect on their own growth and potential, to identify what is important to them - and then go and get it.
Understanding your strengths or your "type" does not necessarily define who you are. You are wonderfully complex and capable of adaptation and change. But for me, this concept is a really useful place to start and it also helps me recenter when I need to come back to what is important to me and what I am good at. No matter where your awareness falls on the spectrum, IT'S OKAY, because the great thing about growth is that there is always room to discover more about yourself.
Official Bio
Bonnie McDaniel McClure is a freelance writer from rural, northwest Georgia. She completed her Bachelor’s in Psychology, with a minor in Studio Art, at the University of West Georgia in 2012. For over a decade she worked for a small, non-profit Montessori School, earning first hand experience with child development and nontraditional educational practices. The last seven years of her tenure she held an administrative leadership role.
Bonnie is an avid runner and practicing yogi. Her writing is focused on spiritual growth, parenting, positive psychology, and self-improvement. The bulk of her published work may be found at PsychCentral.com. Bonnie is especially interested in the intersection of spirituality and psychology for living a fulfilled and purposeful life, but her favorite job, by far, is raising her two young sons plus a dalmatian mix named Kudzu.
Bonnie is an avid runner and practicing yogi. Her writing is focused on spiritual growth, parenting, positive psychology, and self-improvement. The bulk of her published work may be found at PsychCentral.com. Bonnie is especially interested in the intersection of spirituality and psychology for living a fulfilled and purposeful life, but her favorite job, by far, is raising her two young sons plus a dalmatian mix named Kudzu.
