Choosing Yourself

Choosing yourself simply means you stop pretending. You stop pretending that things are ok with you that aren’t ok with you. You stop trying to be the “chill girl”, the “funny girl”, the “go with the flow girl”, the “girl that’s down for whatever”. Not because you aren’t those things, but because those parts of you need no trying. Those parts of you are inherently present, so the compulsion to further embody these characteristics, to enhance, to amplify, communicates on a deep, soul level to yourself that in order to be loved - to be fully accepted by your family, friends, potential suitors - that you need to be more. That your authentic self is either, 1. not good enough, or 2. innately wrong.

We spend our whole lives, unknowingly dedicated to reinstalling these beliefs about ourselves; these beliefs that are born from many different sources. Every time you were excluded on the playground, felt unseen, unheard, were rejected (starting with your kindergarten crush even though whatever because he definitely still has cooties), fell, scraped your knee and were told its not a big deal, stop crying and be a tough girl, every time you were told to go upstairs and brush your hair, and so so so many more moments that as a child, you assign meaning to in an innocuous attempt to make sense of the world you are constructing before your very eyes.

Now, I want you to imagine the little girl inside of you. I want you to bring your favorite picture of yourself as a child to the forefront of your mind - the one where your purity, your innate worthiness, your unique divinity is fully encapsulated but the curiosity and goodness reflected back in your eyes. Now, I want you to try to imagine telling this little girl she is not enough. I want you to try to imagine telling this little girl there is something wrong with her. For me, it pains me to even try to imagine telling that to the little girl I am picturing. That’s because it is not truth. Just the thought of telling that to the little girl I am picturing makes my belly tingle - in a way that tells me my whole being is in disagreement with that thought. My whole self, no matter how far away and silenced it may have been for years - decades for most - is passionately and deeply objecting. 

Now imagine that same little girl. Imagine yourself, as you are now, embracing that little girl. Holding her in your arms, cocooned in your chest and saying you are safe, you are enough. Gently holding the back of her head, kissing her on the forehead, looking in her big, wide open eyes, and saying you are exceptional and unlike any other; you are flawless right now in this moment and forever.

For the majority of us, we may be having an emotional reaction to that visualization. For the majority of us, we have never been given permission, by ourselves or others, to return home to ourselves - even for a moment. I’ve been thinking about what it means to choose yourself lately. I’ve been met with many situations, as we all are, that have powerfully propelled me into old thought loops and old beliefs that trigger familiar emotional reactions that further perpetuate the old thought loops and beliefs. See how it’s a slippery slope of indulgence in the lies that feel so comfortable? In the lies that make sense to us because we’ve lived our whole lives abiding by the inherent restraints they impose on our evolution into our most authentic selves. 

Choosing yourself simply means questioning the thoughts and the corresponding beliefs when we find ourselves sitting in the darkness, in the isolation of self generated untruths. Choosing yourself simply means returning home to peace when we are desperately grasping for reasons why. Reasons why we were rejected, reasons why we didn’t get this or that [fill in the blank with anything we have convinced ourselves we need externally to validate the parts of ourselves we have repeatedly abandoned]. Choosing yourself simply means remembering your inherent deservingness, your innate goodness, and your divine beauty; there is no one and nothing that can take that away from you - unless you let them.