You Decide who You are.

One of my favorite quotes is: "No one gets to tell you who you are". The full quote includes a swear word for emphasis, but I try to keep this blog pretty clean, so I left it out. Your welcome, grandparents. ;) These words are so simple, and to many, it probably feels like a "no, duh"moment, but really sit with this sentence and truly soak it up. Let it resonate.

No one. Gets to. Tell you. Who. You. Are.

If someone creates a false interpretation of you, if they perceive you in a different light than you would've hoped for, if someone makes an assumption on who you are, no matter what that's based off of: it holds no value or credibility unless you give it credit or value.

YOU CHOOSE who you are.

You choose what you believe about yourself.

You get to choose if you're gonna believe that you're strong, resilient, if you're capable. Ultimately- you know yourself more than any other human on earth. And that fact will always remain true. Who's been there when you've hit rock bottom? You. Who's seen you at your highs and all your lows? You, sis. Who knows every single awkward moment you've experienced? Ding, ding, it's YOU again! Do we see a pattern?

Now, I know there's some people reading this right now thinking: "yea, we get it, but it's hard to remain grounded in who I am when others voices seem to over power my own". First off, I empathize FULLY! You're not alone. As a teenager myself, I too experience these moments when I find myself going down the rabbit hole of: what will so and so think if I launch that idea I really want to pursue?, is this 'too much'?, are people gonna think I'm too outspoken?, should I have re-worded that??, etc.

Girl. I get you.

These feelings suck, yea? Yea. But, good news! These negative beliefs hold 0 value. Zilch. Zero. Just as easily as they can enter our minds, they can be released, if we develop habits to train our minds to replace these thoughts with better ones. I call it: "flipping the script". Remember what I told you earlier? That negative, limiting beliefs hold no value, unless given value? Yea, let's emphasize that again. Your mind doesn't know the difference between what's true and what's false. This can be both a blessing and a curse. Why? Because, if you're constantly telling your mind that you're ugly, you're worthless, you won't succeed; your mind will believe you.

But- more good news. If you feed your mind positive thoughts + affirmations, it will grow to believe those things too.

It pains me that we live in a culture where we're labeled as vain, or conceited for claiming that we love ourselves, for calling ourselves beautiful, claiming we love our face, we love our eyes, that we love the way our body looks. I feel that a lot of what we witness within media preaches loving ourselves, yet, that we should keep that love internal, because heaven forbid you claim and express that you love who you are.

Puke. (Can you sense my irritability?)

You deserve to love yourself. You deserve to believe that you're exceptional. Not just good, or "OK", you deserve to believe that you are outstanding. That you are beautiful. You deserve to believe that you are incredible, today, as you are.

No one else dictates who you are. Flip the script. You decide.

Who are you?

What do you believe about yourself?

Fill in the blank. This life is your story. You're the author. Quit giving other people the pen.

X

-j