Hey Everyone,

I hope you are doing well, as well as you can during this time. We are all currently living through the craziest period, most of us will ever experience in our whole life. Living with restrictions has been challenging for all of us and we are all feeling it in different ways, even bringing things to the surface we tried to previously bury.

We sometimes get lost in the expectations of how we should be, or how we should act and somewhere in between trying to seek the approval of others, we completely lose ourselves, the dreams and beliefs we once had, have been overshadowed by other controlling and insecure peoples’ beliefs.

All my life I have been told to stop apologizing. Why do I do it? I think it stems back to trauma. I use it almost like a protection mechanism. In the past, I have apologized when another person was at fault and even worse, when someone was being mean to me, I apologized to them…. What the!

I have had many people take advantage of those traits, and even at my age now, I still have people who try to tell me how I should be. It’s crazy, that people do this and even crazier that in the past I let them. Some see it as kindness and others see it as my weakness.

It’s funny how you can look back at moments, almost like you are having an outer body memory and think what you would have done differently. It’s the past, you cannot change it, but you sure can learn from it.  I know those people who see me like that are those same people who take advantage of my kindness. They underestimate me and do not realize the strong woman I have become. Every time I have been pushed down, I have gotten up feeling internally bruised, but when that bruise heals, I have that extra strength I didn’t have before and the lasting memory.

Self-love is so important. We all need to embrace this. With self-love you love and respect your mind, body and soul and do not allow for them to be compromised. When you love yourself, you find you take yourself out of situations with negative people who do not build you up. When people do try and hurt you, it rebounds off you, as that is a reflection of the person they are, and you know it is their problem and not yours to take on.

It brings clarity in knowing that you are strong enough and that you are a kind person. You are not that weak person they want you to be. You are you, and there is only one you and that is extremely special. So be you. No one as on the planet can be you, so don’t get stuck in the trap and morph into other people’s ideas of the version they would like you to be. Stay strong, you got this.

My biggest regrets are letting people make me feel small and unworthy, when that is not the case at all. They were insecure and it made them feel better about themselves by tearing me down. That’s not okay, and guess what? I do not stand for that because I have learnt to love, trust and believe in myself and nobody can take that away from me again. I feel like a bird that has been released from its cage, and is learning to fly, smelling the breeze and seeing the beautiful world below in all colours.

Undo the cage, set yourself free and find a way to love yourself no matter how long it takes, or how much pain it will dredge up. You are worth it. We only have one heart for life, nurture and trust it. It will lead you to meet the most amazing people and take you to incredible destinations. You are enough and you always have been, you just have to see it yourself.

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week, be true and kind to one another and please remember… Every day is a new day to try, you can quit your day job, just don’t ever give up on yourself or your dream.

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