This post is partly inspired by this video by a lovely friend Jack and partly to do with some realisations I’ve had particularly over the last week.

It’s ok to be me. Just me. Only I can truly be me and I have a responsibility to the world (but more importantly to myself) to be as fully me as possible.

It’s ok for me to be on this journey. Yes, it might be similar to a lot of others, but it is mine and mine alone. I am not exactly the same as any other person. I will never have the all of the exact same thoughts, opinions, beliefs, values, assumptions, experiences as another person. These are what make me me and you you.

It’s ok for me to be discovering who me is. It’s ok to not really know who I am but the acknowledgement of that is enough to point me on the right path. It’s ok to make mistakes along the way to discovering who I am. It’s ok to take from others things that nourish me and leave the things that don’t.

It’s ok to say no to people. This in particular is the thing that has really resonated to me this week. It’s ok to start distancing myself from people who reinforce behaviours in me that are not who I am anymore, behaviours that are destructive and that hold me back. Part of this journey for me will be meeting new people and letting some people from my old life go; I’m a sad that I will be closing the door on those people but I am excited about the whole new door(s) that will be opened to me.

I have done a lot of self-sacrificing in my life. I’ve done things for approval, for acceptance, because I felt like I had to, because I wanted to avoid conflict, because I didn’t think I was important enough to say no that doesn’t make me feel good, or beautiful, or valued, because I didn’t know what being used looked like, felt like. I’m starting to see now; I’m starting to accept that I don’t have to say yes to things just because someone asked me to. I don’t have to say yes to person X just because I said yes to doing the same thing for person Y. I am not obligated to do anything for anyone except myself.

There are a lot of really awesome things that make me who I am and I need to start nurturing those things. I need to take better care of myself and expend less energy on taking care of others; particularly those others who can’t/won’t/don’t expend any energy taking care of me.

It’s ok to say I am important and I want you to make me a priority. I will not be shared; I will not be second best; I will not accept being a back up plan. If that means I lose touch with some people then I guess that just means I have more room in my life for new people to come in.

If this sounds selfish then maybe you need to have a look at yourself too. I am the only person who has to live with myself for the rest of my life and I need to start making conscious, nurturing decisions that make me happy.

There are a lot of things that needed to change in my life and slowly but surely they are changing. I like who I am becoming. I like feeling valued and feeling important but more than that I like feeling those things for being ME, not some mask I was wearing, or a role I was playing. Fitting in with other people is great, but fitting in with yourself, truly, honestly loving who you are and the unique contribution you make to the world feels so much better.