Sing Your Song and Just Be Yourself

Have you ever wondered about what makes you, you?

From the moment we first begin to speak, chuckling out our wonder into this new world and stumbling upon chubby legs, to growing up too fast with big backpacks on during our first day of school, a lesson should be taught.

And that's the lesson that it's SO important to just simply be ourselves.

Instead, we are bombarded with expectations and social pressures. We're told to be this person and that person. We're told to be anyone but ourselves. Comparison is the game and the number of likes and follows becomes the prize.

As you grow up, it's so easy to wish you were more like someone else. You wish to change things about yourself. You hate on your physical appearance. You feel judged for the way you see the world. It's so easy to feel self-conscious and worried about what others will think of you. If you say this or do that, what will people think?

And inevitably life hits hard, you make mistakes, people leave and all you can wonder is what did I do wrong? What's wrong with me?

This year I've been trying to figure out who I am and who I want to become. And it's doing just that, that I realised, I haven't been trying to be myself at all...Rather I've been trying to be something, someone else. A more ideal, perfect version of me. The traits that make me inherently myself, are things I've been trying to ignore and change.

Because I've been taught what the ideal woman should be like...and when I think about who I am, I don't exactly match up. But does anyone match up really?

I wanted to be skinnier, to reduce the curves of my soft hips. I wanted to have a personality that was always light and carefree. I wanted to have hair that curled the right way, with skin that didn't break out now and again. 

I began to feel so self-conscious this year - a feeling I haven't felt since primary school! I was so worried of being a little too much. Caring a little too deep. Being too soft. I don't want to seem too keen, too eager. Too raw, too real.

I questioned everything that makes me who I am. I was trying to focus so hard on being "this" person...

...but it was the times when I just let go of the expectations, that the best surprises happened and I felt absolutely at ease and content and happy with who I am!

When you relax into who you are, every thing becomes so much easier. It's about being adaptable and flexible...always being willing to change and grow. There's no "one" person you need to be 24/7, there's no "one" trait you need to be all the time. Rather know your values, hold on to the characteristics that make you inherently you...then let go and let life throw paint all over you! 

There is literally no barrier to starting over. You can reinvent yourself every single day, like a phoenix, emerging more beautiful than ever before from the ashes of the idea that you must be who you always have been. The distance between who you are and who you want to be is separated only by your words and actions - change is simple!

We are made up of all the experiences we have and all the people we meet. We're like an unfinished colouring page in the book of life, and many people will hold the crayon to colour us in.

We can't always control what happens, which may be frustrating, but it's part of this wild ride of life. And the best thing is that we can control how things shape us. We can let the world beat us like iron into a certain form. OR, we can cocoon ourselves up for awhile when the hard times hit, and emerge a wild butterfly (or a magical moth). 

Everyone has flaws and everyone is imperfect, but as one wise woman (Marilyn Monroe) once said; "Imperfection is beauty. Madness is genius. And it's better to be absolutely ridiculous, than absolutely boring."

For maybe it's good to be overflowing in all that you are. Maybe this is something that makes you, you...

Because you see, no one is YOU and that is your power!

Life will always happen, and it's best not to waste life trying to be anyone but yourself. Don't waste your time trying to live anyone else's dream! Your own is just as valid, unique and all the more beautiful because it is your own, it's YOUR DREAM that gets your OWN heart racing rapidly.

In this life, only seek to be more of yourself, not anyone else. 

If someone doesn't like your truth, the way your dress or the way you see the world - then do not worry about them. Just know your worth is absolute gold and you cannot please everyone anyway. Know your worth and then go find others who will value that too. There are billions of people in the world and definitely at least one million of them will love your dress.

The best people who are worth your time and effort will cherish you anyway and go out of their way to make you know how wonderful you are - hold on to these people. 

Surrender and accept where you are, who you are and move forward. Embrace your quirks because they are the things that make you absolutely remarkable. 

We keep hiding ourselves away...playing it safe, trapping ourselves inside a cage of our own making. At the end of the day, society may tell us to be this way, but our own worst enemy is ourselves. Society provides the iron, wood and tools, but we are the ones who build the prison and nail ourselves in shut.

Because life is so so so simple really. We, make it complicated. Our own worst enemy is ourselves. Yet do not lose hope - because if you only make peace with yourself, the world is yours for the taking. YOU are your most powerful weapon. YOU can do anything.

All you have to do is decide on it. Then go out and work hard and play harder to chase down your dreams.

I am still learning about who I am. I'm still growing and learning about myself. I'm unlocking rooms within me that I only just discovered last week. And I'm still shutting doors and burning rooms down. But I know what I want, I know what makes me, me and I believe in it. I believe in myself and my values, in who I am.

And so this is me reminding you:

You are worth more than universes. 

You are worthy.

You are utterly magic.

And baby, you're a total champ!

I tell you now, it's time to BREAK FREE!

You can be the change you want to see in the world. 

For everything simply starts from within.