Sometimes being vulnerable and honest are the things that will lead you to healing, and even bring forth positive feedback.

I never thought that I would get very many readers, and I certainly never thought that I would get incredibly positive and motivating direct messages from people who have read my first book and have been empowered by that. I think that's honestly one of the best things to have happened with this whole process—knowing that my struggles and my own way of climbing out of those have helped other people do the same thing. Unknowingly helping other people is incredibly rewarding and humbling.

Sometimes the impact that your work has on other people is bigger than the impact on yourself.

This one kind of goes along with the first one, but I honestly had no idea how my work would influence other people. Quite frankly, I think other people have been more heavily impacted by my work than what I have—and that's an incredibly powerful thing.

By putting my own hardships, trauma, pain, and words of empowerment out into the universe, I’ve unknowingly encouraged and inspired others to do the same.

This one is by far a lesson that still makes me get emotional to this day. The fact that I chose to bare my soul in ink has made other people choose to do the same is incredibly awe-inspiring to me. I had no idea that my first book would have such a deep emotional impact on anyone, honestly.

Vulnerability and authenticity are rare and sacred things.

I realize that not everyone is as brutally or bluntly honest about the things that go on in their personal lives, but for me, the acts of being vulnerable and truly authentic to my own voice and my own mission in life have made me come to realize that it's an incredibly sacred and rare thing to choose to be vulnerable in today's society. Not many people are willing to bare their souls for the world to see, but it's a powerful and potentially empowering thing to do so.

Some people will be jealous of your "success," and that's okay.

I think that this one is one of the most important lessons I've learned. I don't think any of the jealousy that some people have shown me is in any way malicious; I just think that it's a part of human existence. It's made me realize that just because I've had complete strangers reach out to me about my work, that doesn't mean that the figurative spotlight has to be on me a lot of the time. It's humbling to remember that other people's feelings and experiences are valid, even though they might seem hurtful and negative at first.

Also, the reason why I've put quotation marks around the word, "success" is that everyone sees success differently, and that's one of the great things about being human--different perspectives on just about everything. The jealousy that has been directed towards me and my "success" reminds me of the many different perspectives on human life and existence; that's another humbling aspect of this lesson.

Both the positive and negative feedback only fuel my creativity more.

I'm going to be brutally honest for a second. Spite is a big motivator for me. If someone has something negative to say about my work or even me personally, I'm the kind of person to want to rise above what he or she might say or express and this fuels me to make my next project even better than the one before it.

Positive feedback is another huge motivator. I like writing as honestly and with as much raw emotion as I do because it helps me see that my pain means something, my trauma and hardships are not meaningless, and that my experiences can help other people. I think that this last part is incredibly important because it's a powerful and healing thing to know that your work has had such an impact on someone else's life.