I’m not entirely sure where to begin, but I feel like this needs to be said “out loud.”

When I got furloughed from my job, I knew I would enjoy all the free time I would essentially have to myself, but I never gave much thought to how much inner work and growth this experience would bring me.

I had a bit of an epiphany as I was driving today when, suddenly, I realized that I just no longer give a f*ck if people like me or not. I no longer care about appeasing others or shape-shifting in order to appear “normal.” I’m not normal, and happy for it too. I realized today that I no longer give a sh*t about what anyone thinks about me and in that, I have freed up the outside world and, most importantly, I have freed up myself.

Ironically, quarantine has been one of the most liberating experiences of my life.

This time to go within has shown me a lot about what I truly want to be doing with this life. This one life as this person, Natalie, right here and right now, typing these words. And I have become more conscious of the fact that I have kind of been waiting for my life to start in some ways. I have been waiting for the outside world to accept me and love me, without doing the work for myself first.

I have been waiting to be perfect and in that have finally understood that it doesn’t matter how “perfect” I am, people are going to find ways to be negative or criticize as that is just what people do. I could create the greatest content in the world, and someone could still find something negative to say about it. I have learned to love my imperfections, and I am in complete awareness that if I spend the rest of my life waiting to be perfect at something, I’m never going to do it.

I have had the time to reflect on all of my various failed attempts at being an entrepreneur (believe me there are tons) and for the first time in my life, I just feel f*cking proud of the messes I have made. I’m proud of the debt I have accumulated and the stupid decisions that got me into some terrible situations because there is absolutely no one else on this earth who could mess up in the exact same way that I have messed up in my life. I finally feel I am in a place where I can love my f*ckups just as much as my successes.

Because truly I can’t be the only person in the world who has not really celebrated successes in the same ways I seem to continuously celebrate and rake myself over the coals of my seeming failures. This time of self-reflection has allowed me the space and opportunity to start celebrating every tiny success, from talking myself down from the “not good enough” tree to posting more videos, creating more content, and sharing my gifts in the best way that I know how.

Who the f*ck really cares if no one else likes it or me?

Being alone during this time of quarantine has given me an opportunity to really like the person I am. I no longer feel like I need permission to take up space in this world or like I need to win any kind of approval from anyone. If someone feels like they could do it better, then my advice is, go do it!

Seriously. If you are waiting around for your circumstances, your bank account, your body, your insert word here to be perfect before you can start living your life how you want to be living, you are waiting for the wrong thing. Your perspective might just need tweaking in that no one has permission to give you the rights to your soul purpose and place in the cosmic web of things, except you.

Yes, you. The person reading this right now who relates. Stop giving a damn about what anyone thinks and just do it already! The world needs you to claim your space. Your inner child needs you to set yourself free and your soul needs you to shine.

Please don’t correlate my complete “I don’t give a f*ck” mentality for a lack of care and concern about the situations many people are facing right now. I know that there are too many people in this world who are not sure where their next meal is coming from or how they will afford to live while out of work and I get it, believe me, I get it (I have been there pre-pandemic), but I do hope at the very least we can all recognize that this time right now means looking fully at ourselves in all of our chaos and creativity.

My hope is that we can all take this time to let go of old identities, old stories, old ways of being, and set ourselves up for the happy ending we are all wanting in the storybook of our lives. I know it can feel really scary to let go, but letting go creates the space for even bigger blessings than we can imagine arriving.

My time during this pandemic has involved letting go of limiting beliefs and perpetuating stories that have kept me fulfilling a role as a secondary character in my own life; yours might look the same, but perhaps in a different capacity. No matter how similar or dissimilar our respective paths look, the biggest takeaway here is to give yourself permission to live in your fullness as a soul experiencing itself as a human being.

Eat the cake, do the thing, share your gifts, and engage your senses. Experience your life as you, not as the stories you were told or the job that you have allowed to define you. Learn to love yourself more and start caring less about what others think.

Freedom is truly a mindset. Don’t you think it’s time to unlock yourself from your cage? You’ve been in there long enough.

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