Do you ever feel like you aren’t being your true self? Like you are hiding pieces of your personality from the world? I used to do this all the time. It is actually why I started Own Your You. I want to help women fully love who they are. 

I was reading the book Feminine Genius by LiYana Silver last night and some of the words really resonated with me. “I realized that I had traveled far from my true self, and the path back was anything but clear.” Have you ever felt this way? For me it came when I was living in Columbus, I was in my early twenties, and I didn’t even recognize myself. I was sad and lonely, and I was constantly in fear. All of my actions were coming from this fearful place. I was terrified to be me, so I was trying to hide, but it was catching up with me. 

“You stopped trusting yourself. You stopped hearing your soul” (Feminine Genius). This is the point I had gotten to. I didn’t trust myself anymore. My behavior was not in alignment with my values. I was acting how I thought people wanted me to be, not how I wanted to be. When I did this long enough I gave up on trusting myself. “You gave up who you truly are in order to play the part of who you are supposed to be” (Feminine Genius).

When I finally came to this realization, I knew I needed to change. I couldn’t keep pretending anymore, it was literally killing me. I started to think about how I act when I am my true self. I feel lighter, I love to laugh, I am kind, and open to other people and the world. Then I moved into what I value in life, and what I believe in. Then I compared my actions to my values. 

Have you ever had a conversation with someone, and you tell them it’s not about what they say, it’s about what they do or the phrase I will believe it when I see it? I knew I needed to build trust with myself, and I knew I needed to start showing myself through actions. I had to start working towards taking actions that supported my values. I had to show myself that it is safe to be me. 

This can start slow. For me it started with washing my face. Then it was learning how to dream again. From there it was picking one of those dreams and trying it. I was at a speaking event last week, and I was talking about self care. Self care in the intersection of self love, self respect, and self trust. For me it was taking action, while respecting myself that I not only took care of myself, but I learned how to love my authentic self.

XO,

Ellie Curry