Session: How Your Blog Can Change the World
Speaker: Kyeli Smith and Pace Smith

To dig deeper into how your blog can change the world, come see me and Pace present at BlogWorld LA! Our talk is titled, unsurprisingly, “How Your Blog Can Change the World.”

Last year was the absolute worst year in my entire life.

I had a big dream, you see, and a mere handful of weeks before I made it real, it was torn from me violently and unexpectedly.

I thought I lost everything.

I wrote about it. I blogged my entire journey. I posted a very public post about my very private parts. I wrote about my desperation. I wrote about my anger. I shared my fears and my sorrow. I told the world how much I hated Great Spirit. I blogged when I was broken, I blogged when I was weeping, I blogged when I had nothing left in me but words. I blogged when it scared me and I blogged when it was all that kept me alive and I blogged when I started getting better, too.

I thought I was alone.

But then the comments started. And then the emails came.

People pouring their hearts out to me, a strange girl on the internet writing about her pain because there wasn’t anything else she could do. People weeping when I wept. People raging when I raged. People holding me in their hearts when I couldn’t hold myself. People offering me comfort. People offering their own pain. Sharing. Opening. Connecting.

Worlds were changed.

Late last year, for the first time in over twenty years, I declared myself a writer. I looked back over the sea of posts I’d written through the sea of grief, and I saw how it nourished me to write. I saw how my words kept me alive. I saw how connections had been forged, how lives had been altered – and not just mine.

I touched hundreds of lives.

But all I did was blog my own pain.

I didn’t set out to change the world last year. That was my goal before my tragedy, but afterwards, all I could think about was the despair. I set out to write, selfishly, because there was nothing else I felt I could do.

And even then, even in the darkest of my days, I was changing the world.

The world needs your stories.

We need to hear your voice.

We’re here, waiting for you. We will resonate with your heart. We will share our stories in return. We will build bridges together, forge connections, learn and laugh and listen. We will weep when you weep, love when you love, cheer for you when you need lifting up. Communities are built through blogs. Hearts are opened. Lives are touched.

And worlds are changed.

When you change one person, even a tiny bit, you are changing the world – because the world isn’t made up of a ginormous glob of people-goo. It’s made up of individuals, all thriving and thwarting and breathing together.

Each person changes everyone they encounter.

And that changes the world.

So gather your words and tell us your stories.

We’re waiting for you.

Kyeli Smith (that’s me!) is co-leader of the Connection Revolution, teaching people to change the world through connection. (I’m @Kyeli on Twitter, if you’re into that.) My wife is also my business partner – which is awesome – and together we work to foster love, tolerance, healing, communication, and personal growth. I’m a writer, a witch, a lesbian, and an unschooling mom. I sing in the shower, wear fantastic stripy socks, and believe in faeries.