If You Are Not in the Arena, Don’t Throw Stones

I’ve been sitting with something lately.

Storytelling Is Sacred.  

Cruelty is Not.

It’s a truth I feel down to my bones. Storytelling is one of our most powerful gifts as human beings. It’s how we make sense of our lives, reach across the chasm of isolation, and whisper, “I’ve been there, too.”

Stories are more than words projected into a microphone. They are gifts—offerings of truth-telling wrapped in vulnerability, shaped by lived experience, and shared with the hope that someone else might feel less alone. When someone chooses to share their story, they are reaching across the darkness, extending a lifeline to someone who feels unseen, unheard, and unworthy. 

Every guest who sits across from me on She Is Mother is doing something brave—not because they have all the answers, but because they are willing to stand in the rawness of their own humanity and say, “This is me. This is my truth.”

They’re not performing. They’re not promoting. They’re allowing themselves to be seen—fully, tenderly, unapologetically. That act of courage is an invitation. It is a beacon. It is a healing balm for those struggling to find their own voice.

When someone shares their truth, they’re not just offering their words. They are offering their pain, their wounds, their resilience, their healing. They are giving others permission to do the same. It is the most generous act of service one human being can offer another--peeling back the layers, exposing the tenderness beneath the scars, and saying, “I have been here, and I made it through. So can you.”

That is sacred. That is revolutionary. That is the kind of bravery that changes lives.

And yet, there’s a shadow side to all of this.

As soon as someone has the courage to share their truth, people are always lurking in the dark, ready to tear it down.

Some of the comments I’ve seen directed at my guests are cruel. Not constructive. Not offered in the spirit of growth or curiosity. Just cruelty for cruelty’s sake—dismissive, cutting remarks hurled from behind the safety of a screen. 

What troubles me most is not just the content of the comments but what they represent—a loss of humanity, a willingness to harm others without accountability or consequence.

Not all people. But some.

They are the kind who use comment sections like weapons.

They are the ones who confuse critique with cruelty.

The kind who forget there’s a human being on the other side of the screen, voice, or story.

It’s made me ask: When did we forget how to honor someone’s truth?

I’ve wrestled with that question for a while now, holding it with the kind of care it deserves. Because calling out the cruelty that’s so easily thrown at others—particularly those who dare to share their stories—isn’t something I take lightly. I didn’t want to write about this from a place of reaction or frustration but from a place of grounded truth—a place of self-leadership.

If you’ve followed my podcast, She is Mother, you know it’s not just a conversation platform—it’s a space where the stories that don’t get told finally have a place to breathe. It’s where people show up with their whole, messy, beautiful humanity and say, “Here I am. This is what I’ve lived. This is what I’m healing. This is what I know.”

It’s a place where we welcome, honor, and celebrate vulnerability—where the power of someone’s truth can transform not just their own life, but the lives of everyone who bears witness to it.

And that kind of vulnerability? It takes courage most people will never understand.

When I see the cruelty that can come so casually in the comment sections, it leaves me wondering what kind of world we’re creating. We’ve become conditioned to mistake cruelty for strength, dismissal for insight, and attack for authenticity.

But there’s nothing authentic about cruelty. There’s nothing constructive about tearing someone down for the sake of entertainment or self-righteousness.

And frankly, we need to talk about it.

Courage Doesn’t Always Look Like a Battle Cry—Sometimes It Looks Like Telling the Truth

Every guest who has come on She is Mother has done something sacred: they’ve told the truth of their lived experience.

Do you know how terrifying it is to say out loud, “This is what I’ve been through”? Do you know what it takes to open your heart to the world and share something deeply personal—something that still trembles inside you—hoping it might serve someone else?

That is courage.

That is leadership.

And it deserves reverence.

When someone lays their story bare in the service of healing, transformation, and human connection, the least we can do is listen with respect. Their story may not be yours. You may not agree with every choice they made. You may not understand where they are coming from, or their story may not resonate with you. But the fact that they chose to share it, to stand in the arena and speak from a place of vulnerability, demands a certain kind of reverent witnessing.

It is not your place to cut them down because their truth makes you uncomfortable.

Whatever Happened to the Golden Rule?

“Treat others the way you want to be treated.”

It’s one of the first lessons many of us are taught as children. But somewhere along the line, we seem to have forgotten it.

Or maybe we didn’t forget—we just stopped applying it when there was a screen in between.

The Golden Rule isn’t just a sweet ideal. It’s a moral compass. A reminder that we are all connected. That the way we show up for others says something about who we are—not who they are.

And yet, we now live in a culture where takedowns get more engagement than compassion, where being “brutally honest” is celebrated, even if that “honesty” is more brutality than truth, and where we confuse speaking our minds with spewing our projections.

So let me ask you: If you shared something vulnerable, raw, and deeply personal, how would you want to be received?

That’s your answer. That’s your standard.

Anything less than that is beneath your integrity.

Anonymity Doesn’t Give You Permission to Be Cruel

There is something deeply corrosive about the kind of cruelty that hides behind anonymity. People say things they would never say to someone’s face in comment sections. They weaponize their opinions as if they are sacred truths when they’re often reflections of their own unhealed wounds.

Because let’s be honest— Happy, healed, grounded people don’t troll comment sections with malice. They don’t tear down others for sharing their truth. They don’t ridicule vulnerability. They don’t belittle people’s pain.

People who are at war with themselves tend to project that war outward. When I read those comments, I don’t take them as fact. I take them as a mirror—revealing something not about the person they’re attacking but about the person doing the attacking.

And it breaks my heart.

Not just for my guests—but for the commenters, too. Because somewhere along the way, they learned that power comes from making others feel small. Somewhere along the way, they forgot that every human being is worthy of dignity, even if you don’t understand their experience.

As my grandmother used to say: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

And I’ll add--if you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face—don’t say it online.

You are still responsible for your words. The screen does not absolve you of your character.

If You’re Not in the Arena

As Brené Brown so brilliantly puts it, “If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked, I am not interested in your feedback.”

Because here’s the truth: it’s easy to sit on the sidelines and judge. It’s easy to criticize someone’s story when you’ve never dared to tell your own. It’s easy to throw stones when you’ve never risked being seen. 

You don’t get to throw punches if you’re not willing to get in the ring.

So, to the critics, the keyboard warriors, and the commentators with sharp tongues and shallow empathy, I invite you to pause.

Have you done your own work?

Have you stood before a microphone and told the truth about who you are?

Have you offered your wounds in service of someone else’s healing?

If not, then maybe it’s time to stop talking and start listening.

Because commentary without skin in the game isn’t bravery—it’s cowardice dressed up as critique.

The Call to Self-Leadership: THINK Before You Speak

This isn’t just about online behavior. It’s about who you choose to be—every day, in every interaction, whether in person or online.  True self-leadership is about choosing to lead yourself with integrity, accountability, and emotional maturity—especially when no one’s watching.

So before you leave a comment—on a podcast, a post, a story someone has shared—pause and ask yourself:

T – Is it Thoughtful?

H – Is it Helpful?

I – Is it Inspiring?

N – Is it Necessary?

K – Is it Kind?

If your answer to any of these is “no.”

Then don’t say it.

Keep your mouth shut.

Because commentary is easy.

Character is rare.

We are in a time when the world needs more courage, not criticism, more compassion, not cleverness, and more self-awareness, not self-righteousness.

Because, in the end, your words are never just words.

They are evidence of your inner world.

And you are responsible for what you put into the world.

The stories shared on She Is Mother podcast are sacred. They are acts of bravery, and they deserve our reverence—not our ridicule.

Choose better.

Be better.

Lead better.

Live better.