Choosing yourself when telling the truth changes everything

I recently had the honor of talking with Megan Farison on Work in Progress, and it is one of those conversations that stays with you.

Megan is a speaker, musician, educator, and author of Dissonance, a memoir that is as brave as it is beautifully written. Our conversation centered on trauma, healing, shame, and what it means to reclaim your story when the truth changes everything you thought you knew about yourself.

It is not an easy conversation. But it is an important one.

Let’s first acknowledge that one of the hardest truths about trauma is that it does not always announce itself. Sometimes it hides inside confusion. Sometimes it disguises itself as love. Sometimes it takes years, even decades, before we have the language to name what happened to us.

Megan’s trauma was realizing what had happened to her in her youth was abuse. She had been groomed by a teacher, but at the time, she believed she was in a relationship. Megan spoke so powerfully about how grooming works slowly. It builds trust, creating the feeling that you are in a special world where only you and the other person exist. It looks like care. It looks like attention. It looks like being chosen. 

And that is exactly why it can be so hard to identify while it is happening.

What struck me most was how honest Megan was about the aftermath.

When the truth about her former band director came to light years later, her entire world cracked open. She described that moment as the point when everything changed. And what followed was not a neat, linear healing journey. It was grief. Confusion. Shame. PTSD. A complete unraveling of the story she had been telling herself for almost twenty years.

And yet, what Megan kept coming back to was this: the reason she is where she is today is because she was willing to face it head-on.

Whether or not you have lived Megan’s exact experience, I think so many of us know what it means to be confronted with something we would rather not face. A painful truth. A loss. A failure. A pattern. A version of ourselves we no longer want to be. 

In those moments, we have a choice. 

• We can run from it, numb it, and minimize it. 

• Or we can turn toward it and ask, what is true here?

  
  

Megan chose to turn toward it.

She also spoke about shame in a way that I know will resonate with so many people. She said that if you are carrying something and you believe that if people found out you would lose belonging, that is shame lying to you.

What a powerful reminder.

We are so often hardest on ourselves. We disqualify ourselves from love, from belonging, from starting over, from healing. We think our mistakes, our pain, or what has happened to us somehow make us less worthy.

But Megan’s story is a testament to the opposite.

The more honest she became with herself, the more freedom she found. 

We also talked about writing, and how writing Dissonance saved her life. Not metaphorically, but literally.

Writing became a way for her to make sense of what had happened. A way to connect dots that did not make sense in her mind before. A way to move pain out of her body and onto the page. A way to turn shame into truth, and truth into purpose.

That experience is what led her to co-found Give Her The Pen, a business devoted to helping women heal through writing.

I love that mission so much because it reminds us that telling your story does not have to mean publishing a memoir. It might mean journaling in your bedroom, or writing a note you never send.

The point is not performance. The point is honesty.

And Megan made that so clear: your story matters, even if it does not look dramatic from the outside. You do not have to compare your pain to someone else’s for it to count. You do not have to earn the right to tell the truth.

Managing relationship shifts during healing

Another part of our conversation that felt especially important was what happens when your healing changes your relationships.

When you become more honest, more authentic, more yourself, not everyone comes along comfortably. Some relationships stretch and change. Others may end. And that can feel terrifying.

Megan’s perspective on this was both compassionate and liberating. The people who are meant to stay with you on your journey will stay, and the people who cannot make room for your honesty may fall away. 

That does not always make them bad people. But it doesn’t mean you can abandon yourself just to keep everyone else comfortable.

That is a lesson I am learning in my own life, too.

Learn to give it time

There was a moment in our conversation where Megan said that if someone does not want to be in a relationship with the real, honest version of you, you can let them go in peace. That does not mean it won’t hurt. It doesn’t mean it happens quickly. In fact, one of the last things she said was something I needed to hear: Give it time.

We want to fix everything immediately. We want clarity now, resolution now, healing now. But relationships, identity, forgiveness, grief? It all takes time. Sometimes the work is simply continuing to align your actions with your values and trusting that the rest will unfold as it should.

That felt like such a grounding reminder.

So here is my takeaway from this conversation:

Facing the truth may be the hardest thing you ever do. But it may also be the thing that gives you your life back.

Your story matters. Your healing matters. Your honesty matters.

And if you are in a season where you are trying to understand your past, reclaim your voice, or stop carrying shame that was never yours to begin with, I hope Megan’s story reminds you that there is freedom on the other side of facing what is true.

You do not have to do it perfectly or publicly. You just have to be willing to begin.

If this conversation resonates with you, I highly recommend Megan’s book, Dissonance. It is heartbreaking, courageous, and full of the kind of honesty that can change you.

And if there is something in your life you have been afraid to put into words, maybe this is your sign to pick up the pen.

Much love,

Gayle