“Even in ordinary moments, there always seemed to be some quiet measuring happening in the background.

Am I doing enough?
Do I seem confident?
Do I belong here?
Am I behind?”

“I remember thinking, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It is supposed to be easy, fun, light, bright, full. But I was feeling dread, heavy, scared, unsure. It was the first time I really felt let down by life. I was young and had some idealistic thoughts of what life was going to look like. Or at least what it should look like. I couldn’t imagine what could possibly come next, what with this bursting of the bubble that I thought was life?”

“I didn’t know it but my feelings of failure were actually making me feel like I was a huge failure. I also had a big gap in my ability to like and have faith in myself. I think that’s why I compared myself so much to others. I went several years taking steps forward, steps backward, and constantly telling myself there was something wrong with me.” 

“I really looked at myself and plucked those thorns out one by one. It was grueling. I kept plucking them - painfully - until I finally realized there was a rose there all along…”

“My shell eventually became so hard that I found myself covered in self doubt, self judgment, and just overall worry about myself and everything around me…”

“I didn’t have a great view of myself and couldn’t see how others would…”

I always thought I knew the path ahead of me. I always had goals and I thought that ahead of goals was achievement. No one told me it’s not that simple…