One day, she stopped walking around and asking everyone else if she was worthy.

She stopped hanging her confidence on the cheap, too-sweet icing of other people’s opinions.

She stopped wondering if she was good enough.

She decided to believe it, unwaveringly.

She stood up, tall and proud, after years of crouching like a kitten in the shadows—she stood up, a brave lioness now—and in the gentlest rays of golden glittering sun, she felt her cheeks glow with a tender warmth that she had long forgotten.

She stood tall, like a sunflower, and took a roarin’ stand for her soul.

She rebelled fabulously against the treacherous reign of self-doubt, guilt, shame and denial—all that had polluted her heart with poison for years.

She cried tears of rapturous joy, screamed at the top of her lungs, and for the first time in her life, she decided to believe.

In love. In the blossoming lilac scent of hope. In the whispering howls of dreams.

In her own heart.

Oh yes, she decided to believe in herself. Wholly. Completely. Unwaveringly.

She surrendered to the sublime quiet of an ecstatic exhale and settled into her own skin.

She felt her soul spring to life, like an aching bud.

And she smiled.

She smiled a smile so big it could crack open the sky and swallow the stars.

She smiled a smile that could slay dragons, breathe fire and make the tenderest wildflowers bloom.

She smiled to no one but herself, laughed with the trees and sang with the soft afternoon breeze.

One day, she stopped being led around by the deceptive carrot of other people’s approval. She stopped agreeing with all the idiots who said she cared too much and felt too deeply. She stopped worrying what they’d think if she laughed too loudly or danced too freely or showed her heart too vulnerably.

Because really, there is no such thing as laughing too loudly or dancing too freely or showing our hearts too vulnerably.

She walked proudly now, led by the blistering ruby pulses of love, drinking from the deepest salty seas of truth, knowing once and for all that the rippling softness in her heart was exactly what made her so fierce.

She tore open her skin, and said to the world:

“Here I am.”

No more hiding. No more silence. No more apologizing for everything she did and said.

She led with her heart and kissed the earth with every step she took.

She loved as fiercely as her soul demanded. She spoke her truth with radiant roars of budding excitement, shining her magical light on every crack and crevice of the universe, just as she was meant to.

It was time to make the world more beautiful by being exactly who she was.

One day, she stopped walking around, asking everyone else if she was worthy.

She decided to believe it.

Wholly. Completely. Unwaveringly.

It was time to make the world more beautiful—by being exactly who she was.

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Relephant Read:

A Badass, Truth-Soaked Manifesto to Help us Live Like we Really Mean it.

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Author: Sarah Harvey

Editor: Toby Israel

Photo: Chrismatos/Flickr // Julia Caesar/Unsplash

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