I finally came to understand that I did not trust myself. I want to be able to share myself with anyone I choose and stand behind my sharing, no matter how the other person responds. I am not less because I have shared some of myself, I am not what is shared?

I originally worked the angle with ideas and sharing them, afraid others would "steal" them? Story ideas, just ideas of how to do something better at work, etc. I came to understand that I was thinking one had only so many ideas and if someone else liked and used them I'd have less.

But it's a form of practice, the more you practice coming up with ideas the better you get at it. The more you practice sharing and dealing with sharing yourself, the better and more comfortable you get with it. We're not always going to have trusted, good listeners and often even the trusted, good listener might be distracted or have issues of their own going on.

Think about what you post on sites such as this one, how you feel when others don't understand or seem to criticize what you have to say. I arbitrarily decided to not delete my posts or block others from responding or be defensive about what I had to say; I think about what I am writing and say it the best I can and stand behind myself 100% after posting. If I find I have made a mistake, I own it and apologize. If someone doesn't appear to understand, I will try to explain in a different way. If I am scared to read responses because I feel I was a bit "out there" I read them anyway. I try to stay "here", with myself, a friend to myself. I trust myself. Practicing that, here, helps me do the same in the real world, live, with other people.