a message for my healthy babes

I remember times when I didn't feel as blessed and privileged as I feel now to be me. I remember times when I felt like I needed to be something different. I remember feeling unsafe in my body. I remember feeling disconnected from my body, feeling like who I was is not who I am supposed to be, and in a way I was right. I wasn't created to be someone who second guessed herself, or felt uncomfortable in her body or with who she was. And after a lot of me allowing people to make me feel less than, and letting people shut me out and dim my light, I had to restructure my thought patterns and really sit down to see which thoughts and beliefs I had about myself were mine, and which ones I was holding on to from people who weren't supposed to be in my energy in the first place. That's the thing with energy leeches, they will see everything that you are and try to take it because they don't want you to have it or even worse — they will try to convince you that you don't have it. Our energy deserves to be protected.

Healthy girls, let’s get our shit together and let’s do it immediately (with love, xo).

In the past, so many of my thoughts about myself or about my actions were not my own because I listened to what other people said more than my own inner voice and intuition but, the more time I spent with myself, the more I learned what my own voice sounded like.

Now... this process was not easy for me at all, and I went through a very rough journey once the awareness set in like... Ok girl, let me set the scene because I need you to understand where I was mentally when all of these realizations started hitting me, alright?

So, first of all, I was very young. I was in my hot college babe era, I was fine as hell (still am, might I add), away from home for the first time, just moving through life enjoying it, you know? I felt free, but I felt trapped. I was trapped in a mindset that I had to live up to the standards that other people saw me in or I would crumble, even though I was already crumbling. My mindset was if I could stay who I was "supposed" to be, I could keep moving through life. Girlllllll, pretending.

(I'm laughing while I'm writing this because when I look back from a more healed perspective, I can see how I was putting on a show. Girl you were PERFORMINGGGGGG and for who?!? And what did you gain?! Like, girl, if we're gonna be anything we have got to be for real.)

We both knew better because I knew I wasn't happy. I had convinced myself that if I just pretend not to notice it, it would go away. So, yeah, as you can imagine, my world was shaken up a bit once I decided to face the fact that I was not happy and that my anxiety was taking over my life. I barely wanted to leave the house. I didn't like people looking at me. I didn't like being seen, and everything felt like it was caving in on me, but if I just smiled and if I just kept moving it would go away. (Narrator: It did not go away.) — and it would not go away until I did something about it, until I actually faced it and dealt with it.

And I'm still facing scary things, and dealing with emotions that sometimes feel intimidating and there is still a part of me that wants to ignore it and keep moving but we know that if we do that, nothing will change. At our big girl age, we welcome changes and recognize that changes happen for our good. We reflect and we look at which thoughts are actually ours and which thoughts have we just blindly accepted from others. We are not born with pre-set beliefs, we learn them from somewhere.

So, who told you all of the things that you believe about yourself?
Who told you that you were too much?
Who told you that if you act a certain way, people won't like you?
Who told you that hard things are scary, so you shouldn’t try them?
Who taught you the beliefs that you move through life clinging onto for dear life, and are they even true? Do you actually believe them?

The Buddhists teach us to test everything for ourselves to see if we believe it.

You know, it's good to question things. It’s good to see how we feel about things, instead of running off of how everyone else feels. It’s good to learn what our own voice sounds like, so that we can learn to listen to it. But, don’t just take my word for it. Try it yourself. As we grow, we will find ourselves on a continuous healing journey. Hear me when I say, there is no end. We shouldn't desire an end, because the end means that we stop learning and we stop evolving. Life is a continuous healing journey that we are blessed to be on.

—

There are some things in life that I know that I am capable of, and on the top of that list is my capability to be myself. I am the only person who can be me fully and authentically. That is my God given gift, something that I am overwhelmingly grateful for because it is a BLESSING to be able to be me -- to live in this body, to see out of these eyes, to think from this mind, to experience love deeply in this heart, to experience life so uniquely. It is a privilege for my soul to be navigating life on earth in this vessel, one that is so fully beautiful and it is my duty to remind myself of that often…

…and I am grateful for the love that surrounds me in the form of family, friendship and connections. I am grateful for the love that surrounds me in nature. I am grateful for the love that shines down on me from the Sun. I am grateful for the gentle and powerful love from the Moon. I am grateful for the love that I feel in the healing waters of the Ocean. I am grateful for the loving energy of the Earth that keeps me grounded. I'm grateful for God loving me and choosing me. I am grateful to be seen, heard and felt. I am deeply loved, and I love deeply, and in this moment that is more than enough. I am more than enough.

…and as we continue on this journey together, I invite you to be here fully and unapologetically. I pray that you are moved to show up as yourself, every single time that you are here. I pray that you would look for yourself, and find yourself. I pray that you would see yourself and love what you see.

Thank you in advance for seeing me.

xo