For the last decade I have been trying to find myself, accept myself and learn to love myself.
That may seem like a ridiculous amount of time to spend on such a simple thing but in this fast-paced world we live in, it makes it incredibly difficult.

Whether we realize it or not, from the time we learn to crawl, we’ve entered a rat race. We are rushing. Rushing to walk, to talk, to express ourselves, to mirror what we see.
We push ourselves to learn, to achieve, to win, to make friends, to be cheered for and acknowledged and recognized for our work, actions and successes. To find relationships.

We get aggravated and attempt things too soon, we take foolish risks and make mistakes – all in an attempt to win an invisible prize – a prize that we sometimes can’t even name but we know it’s there and we want it.
And we don’t even know why.

But never, in that rat race, do we ever take time to learn who we are. To really know ourselves.
We rush ourselves to be good people and to find the right people but…
How do we know they’re the right people or if we’re being good people if we don’t even know who we are?

Now many of you may say I’m crazy and I may not know who I am but you certainly know who you are. But…do you really?
Stop to think about it a minute. Does anything you know about yourself or love about yourself have anything to truly do with YOu or is it mainly based on superficial values or other people?

If you were absolutely 100% alone, would you still love yourself? If your Iooks, money, behaviour, abilities, etc. were no longer relevant and went unnoticed by anyone but you..would you still love you?

See, I spent so many years trying to fit. Wanting to be accepted and loved and wanted. So much time was wasted on wishing I didn’t feel so…alone.
But I guess it wasn’t wasted. Because in the end, I splintered, cracked and shattered so many times for superficial reasons that…I had no choice but to examine the broken pieces of myself.

I had the choice to rebuild myself how I saw fit. Not how anyone else wanted me to be. But how I wanted me to be.
I saw pieces of myself that I liked and smaller pieces of myself that I loved and..I did my best to throw the rest away.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. I will forever be inclined to accept life based on past experience and I will forever take control and redirect my thoughts. But that takes time and determination and sticktuitiveness. And it involves a lot of old fears swimming up to the surface of my mind and much second guessing my gut instinct.

Recently I’ve made choices that were hard for me to make. Choices that were most likely good, positive choices for me. And I was unbelievably proud of myself for a change. But then I woke up wondering if I made the right choice and I had to fight the urge to take back my unbelievably proud moment.

Why did I want to give that moment back? It felt amazing. I felt amazing. But then I felt vulnerable, scared, dumb and foolish. But why? My gut told me which way to go and I still find myself….questioning. Myself. One should never have to question oneself based on vulnerabilities and fears. But I think I always will.

And…that’s ok. Because i think that second guessing is really my way of making sure that I’m certain. Me making sure that I’m making the choices I make for myself. And not for anyone or anything else.

Maybe some of you have the ability to do these things naturally. Maybe you’re comfortable in your own skin and never second guess yourself. Maybe you’ve struggled and been where I’ve been and you now have the experience to tell me that it gets easier. I know it will. And that’s awesome if you’re one of these people and I’m so happy/proud of you for it.

But…for anyone else walking along a similar point in the path, I want you to know that it’s hard. And it’s easy to want to give up and doubt yourself. But don’t give up on rebuilding those pieces of yourself. It may not be what anyone else wanted you to make it. But in the end, it only matters if you’re what YOU want to make it.

And the people who are right for you…well they will still be there or it will feel like they magically appear.
Be open to learning who you are. Even the parts you regret/resent/dislike. Figure out the ‘why’. Learn to accept and love yourself for exactly who you are. Be your own cheerleader in life. You’ll definitely need it 🙂

And those small pieces of myself that I saw and loved and kept? Well…they just keep growing bigger. Those small pieces are becoming very hard to splinter, crack or shatter. That means I’m keeping those forever. And that feels incredible to KNOw that about myself.
And I wish the same for all of you. 🙂