There Is Nothing More Powerful Than A Woman Who Lets Herself Be

There was a massive shift in my life the moment I relaxed into the woman I am.

No more fretting over the size of my thighs, or the dimples on my ass.

No more fussing over things I had said or done, replaying the regret-tape on repeat in my mind.

No more hassling myself over not doing it like some other woman does.

That was the moment I broke the surface and took my first gulp of air, and the massive exhale after. It was like I had been holding my breath my entire life.

And in essence, I had been.

I went to a chiropractor for the first time in October 2017, as she was crunching her way through my body, she looked me square in the eyes, the importance of what she was going to say leveled upon me:

“You have got to stop breathing like you’re running from something.”

Her advice was so intuitive, and it reverberated inside me.

Of course, I’ve been breathing like I’m running from something. Fight or flight is my default mode, and I am usually running away.

You see, marketing and advertising have been targeted at us hating ourselves. It encourages fretting over our flaws, our shortcomings, and details.

It asks how can you be better?

Instead of saying you are already enough.

If it said the latter, there would be no reason for us to buy anything, because we would realize that we are enough, without all the bells and whistles, the fixes and cover-ups.

But instead, we are always running from the women we are, because we are convinced we’re not good enough.

We are chasing the unattainable.

As if starving our bodies and going under the knife for beauty isn’t enough, we nitpick the unnoticeable. The stray-hairs, the wrinkles, the pores. There is nothing that doesn’t see scrutiny.

It is a mass-marketed obsession to fix our bodies–our beautiful, inherently worthy and ideal bodies. As if millions of years of evolution was wrong.

Then, without noticing, this obsession floods every aspect of our lives.

Suddenly we are trying to be perfect and enough in every situation. Instead of understanding that we are inherently worthy in every situation, in every breathe.

In this spiral of running from who we are, we stop letting ourselves be.

The tension of living from this place is a suffocating vice-grip, it will squeeze the joy and peace from your life.

Ask me how I know.

This obsession with physical perfection and our lack of self-worth are two sides of the same coin.

They are things that take our power.

Yes, feeling beautiful, and primping in order to feel beautiful is important. But doing it from a place of fearful obsession, instead of contentedness, is when we wander into dangerous ground.

The difference between obsession and content is beautifying from a place of inherent worthiness, versus if I do this, then I will be worthy of love and connection.

The difference is your level of self-acceptance.

When we believe we have no value as we are, we attack ourselves with vengeance.

When we believe we have inherent value, that we are enough and we are worthy, we build ourselves through beautifying, instead of feeling torn down by our lack.

If you want to take your power back, you will not find it in the latest Cosmopolitan, or in a cream, or under the knife. You will not find it in the binge, nor will you find it in the purge.

You will only ever find your power from within.

You will find your power in redefining your self-worth. You must go from I will be good enough when to I am good enough now.

You will find your power in the moment you can let yourself be.

When you let yourself look different than the current cover model and still feel worthy.

When you let your body age as it wants to and still feel valued.

When you let yourself fail, and make mistakes and still feel deserving.

When you let yourself feel and express the full spectrum of emotions and still feel honorable.

If we only stopped believing that we’re not worthy, we would be unstoppable.

But we are waking up slowly and in doing so, we are changing the world.

As we wake up, we are beginning to see that our value doesn’t lie in physical perfection or accomplishments.

Our value exists in every dimple in our thigh, gray hair on our head, wrinkle on our face, and every breath we take, regardless of what we accomplished today.

Or, as my energy worker said, “Even if you just laid in bed all day, picking your nose, you would still have value.”

There is truly nothing more powerful than a woman who lets herself just be.