A Stranger to Myself

Vulnerability is hard. No one likes to give the appearance that they are falling apart or that they don't have it together. I particularly hate the eyes of pity on me. My ego and empathetic nature can't handle it. I prefer to mask. Or should I say.... I have preferred to mask in the past.

I am trying to break out of that. Although it seemed easier to do that, it is incongruent with my desire to live an authentic life. I had to cut it out and quit with the games. Too much of that makes you a stranger to yourself and a shell of a person.

I'm not with the charades NO MO'. lolol. It is stifling and suffocating to withhold truths. Your mental health suffers when you pretend to be OK when you are NOT.

Healing starts when you tell yourself the truth while seeing yourself through an empathetic lens. Some of the things you experience in life... there aren't words to fully express. Often times it leaves you speechless, stunned and reeling. Why not honor the experience for what it is?

There is no reason to minimize truth to carry the shame of what was, what is, and what isn't. Do not dismiss the impact it has had for the sake of someone else's comfort. It has changed you. It has shaped you. It has informed how you navigate life...and it is not always bad.

The cost of masking is death of your spirit. It snuffs out your light. Is it worth it?

No matter how beautiful the mask is that you have crafted. for yourself, know that walking in your fullness both flawed and imperfect is more luminous...so put it down.

Be you unapologetically.

See your reflection as a treasure to behold because you have endured the storm long enough to see the ray of light. Don't you know the ray of light behind the clouds was you all along.

Truth resuscitates life and offers a key to the door of healing. Enter it.

xoxo,

Naimah