You Are Not A Beautiful Disaster

"We are all born free and spend a lifetime becoming slaves to our own false truths." -Atticus

A year ago, I journaled this. It resonates with me even more today than it did when I wrote it....

I have spent entirely too much time the last year or so believing a very ugly lie...that I am a disaster, chaos, a mess. Sugar coated with exquisite and beautiful to make the believing easier. I am not a beautiful disaster or an exquisite sea of chaos. I am disappointed in myself for believing these things about myself, for letting anyone think it was cute or a joke to regularly call me that, but mostly sad that I owned the label after it was put on me and called myself a wreck, a mess, chaos. I am none of those things. I am a girl with a big open heart, a free spirit, a wild sense of adventure who loves high mountains and their cliff edges, who hugs everyone, who isn't scared to say I love you or to ask for help and who loves her life, all of it! Don't you dare let anyone call you a hot mess or a beautiful disaster, especially yourself and don't you dare believe it as truth!

The last 14 years of my life have been full of deep self discovery. In order to keep my family together, I was uprooted from a home I loved for 2 decades full of family and dear friends to move over 700 miles away to a place where I knew no one. At the time, it was the hardest thing I had ever done. I was lonely and scared and didn't want to move. That move almost 14 years ago turned out to be my biggest blessing. It gave me the gift of being me. Starting over someplace new, I could drop masks from past lives. I learned how to be authentic. I learned that it felt good to be apologetically myself. I learned that my big feels and my ability to be vulnerable about them are my greatest strengths.

It has been a long journey getting to a place where I now wake up each day asking myself "what will I do today in full service to my heart and soul?" Getting to a place where I look at myself each day in the mirror in complete reverence and awe of the beauty I see, the courage and faith. I don't beat myself up for my mistakes, I don't believe that I am a mess, a wreck or a disaster. I have weathered many storms, but I am not the storm itself. What I know to be true about myself is that I am capable of trusting my heart, that I was divinely created to live a life of peace, beauty and joy. That I am beautiful, I am whole and I am worthy of believing in my greatness.

You are too!!!!