Speaking your truth will set you free. It doesn’t always feel like that, especially when we are worried about hurting the person we are talking too.
But speaking your truth means you stay true to who you are. Often, we hide that version because we fear we will not be accepted or we are too busy trying to be someone we think others want.
Your own voice and opinions is who you are. And that matters.
I know the feeling of hiding behind a mask, being one way for one person and another for someone else. Its exhausting. It becomes automatic and becomes impossible to take the mask off.
But the truth is, it was never about them. I decided I wasn’t good enough. I decided the real version of me was too flawed to be loved.
And if I let the mask slip, they might see all my broken pieces and realise I wasn’t good enough and then where would I be?
So afraid of rejection and not fitting in, I was who everyone wanted me to be.
Actually I was being who I thought everyone wanted me to be.
But I wasn’t being myself.
We do it as a protection because we want to fit in, we want to connect, we want to feel love and it terrifies us because we decided we wasn't worthy of it in the first place.
But we end up feeling lost, feeling lonely and wondering why? When we have all these people around us. How can we feel like this?
And all that does is, is confirm that we are unlovable, that we are not good enough. That we are the problem.
And we are.
But not for those reasons.
The problem we have is we have never given anyone a chance to love us. We never showed them who we are and quite often, we are so busy pretending, we actually don’t even know who we are.
And that hurts nobody but ourselves,
It keeps us making bad choices, not being able to love or to receive it and instead of loving and respecting what our body and mind needs, we abuse it.
By food, by drink, maybe even drugs or the biggest enemy of them all…
We abuse ourselves by the nasty words we say about ourselves.
The negative comments we think when we fail.
The thoughts we sit in, replaying over and over, allowing them to destroy us a little more.
Until we find ourselves in a downward spiral with nothing left but anxiety and fear...
And then we have a reason to numb…
We have a reason to go back to the bad food, the alcohol, the short term quick purchases that make us feel a little better for a blip of time.
And we get trapped in that cycle. Over and over.
But there is another way….
We have to come back to ourselves.
We have to come back to who we are.
What we believe in.
What we feel.
How we love.
It's not easy, but it's simple.
We have to find the courage to show up every day.
As who we are.
We have to be brave.
And we have to remember the only way to true happiness is by accepting and loving who we are.
The good and the bad.
So be brave, keep showing up, remove the mask....
Because underneath is the version the world needs to see.
They need to see you, and that's enough.
You are enough x