And a few short years ago, I was in a MUCH different place…
From the outside, I seemed to be doing ok in life…
But on the inside...oh my friend, the inside was a completely different story.
I didn’t know who I was or where I fit in.
I was unsure in the decisions I made.
I didn’t feel confident in myself, my purpose, or most rooms that I walked into (especially around other women).
I felt the need to apologize (a lot)...for not picking up the phone, for not having the “right answer,” for being unsure...let’s just say I was the “apology queen.”
When someone would give me a compliment, it made me feel sooooooo uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to take it so I would awkwardly giggle, half smile, and point out some sort of flaw.
There was a voice inside of me that would say,
“Who are you kidding?"
"You could never do that."
"You're gonna fail."
"You don’t fit in."
"Who do you think you are?”
So I hid…
I sat quietly in the background at social gatherings.
I tried to overcompensate for the lack of belief I had in myself with “just one more degree or certification or book…”
You better believe I could “achieve” the heck out of everything, but even when I achieved whatever I was working on, I still felt like I fell short.
I wasn’t confident in my body, I felt like a hot mess in my mind, and discontent in my spirit.
At times, I felt paralyzed in making decisions because I’d made “wrong ones” in the past.
I played small...I dimmed my light...I was stuck and unsure.
The reality was my potential was being strangled by my feelings of not being good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, or well spoken enough.
Meanwhile, on the inside, my soul was SCREAMING... she wanted to be seen, heard, and understood.
She wanted to be confident and unapologetic and free from rejection, overwhelm, anxiety, and fear.
One day, my soul couldn’t take it anymore…I just KNEW I was MEANT FOR MORE...
Something HAD to give...I had to change something - and fast (because we all know that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result).