Dare to Be You
You are not too much. You are simply you.
It’s okay, what you think. It’s okay what you feel.
It’s okay how you live, how you laugh, how you cry and how long you need for some things.
It should really go without saying. And still we spend so much time questioning ourselves. Am I too emotional? Am I too sensitive? Am I too loud? Too quiet? Am I taking too long to pull myself together again? Shouldn’t I be stronger by now, or further along, coping better with everything?
I know these thoughts all too well. This feeling of constantly having to explain yourself – to others, but above all to myself. As if there were a fixed schedule for everything. For grief. For healing. For decisions and for new beginnings. For life itself.
But we don’t always have to get faster. We have to stop judging ourselves for having our own rhythm.
You don’t always have to be strong
There are days when everything flows easily. When we laugh, make plans and feel like we have our lives completely under control.
And then there are days when every little thing is already too much. When the dark thoughts come back, even though we believed we had left them behind. Then the days when we doubt, cry or simply need to be left in peace.
Those days are part of us, too, and they don’t mean we’re going backward. They also don’t mean that everything we’ve already accomplished is suddenly worth nothing. And they certainly don’t mean that we’re weak.
Sometimes our strength doesn’t show in simply going on and on functioning. Sometimes it shows in honestly admitting that right now, we just can’t anymore.
You’re not difficult just because you feel deeply
People who feel a lot quickly get the feeling that they’re too much – whether too sensitive, too complicated, too intense. Maybe you learned to make your feelings smaller so they’d be easier for others to bear. You held back, stayed silent or pretended everything was fine. Just so nobody would be annoyed. Just so you wouldn’t get that feeling of being wrong again
But your feelings are never wrong, because you’re allowed to be sad, even if others don’t understand why, you’re allowed to be happy without justifying it, you’re allowed to be disappointed, angry, exhausted or unsure.
Feelings don’t make you difficult. They make you human. You can’t and don’t have to solve everything right away. Not every feeling needs an explanation. Some emotions are allowed to simply be there first.
And you’re allowed to take as long as you need
I believe one of the biggest mistakes is constantly comparing our lives to the lives of others.
Others can make decisions better and faster. They seem more self-confident, more successful, happier and more stable. While we seem to keep going around in circles endlessly. But no one walks your path or mine. No one carries my experiences, my fears, memories and my story inside them. That’s why no one can decide how quickly I have to process something or move on.
There’s no wrong time to get back up. There’s no deadline for finally being happy again. And it isn’t failure when we need a break. Sometimes healing takes longer than we hoped. Sometimes doubts come back. Sometimes we have to take the same step several times before it truly feels safe – and sometimes we have to hear one and the same piece of advice 100 times, and only on the 101st time, from the umpteenth listener, does something shift inside us.
And that’s okay, because you are wonderful even in the middle of the chaos.
We often believe we first have to achieve, change or overcome something before we’re allowed to accept ourselves. Only then may I be proud of myself. Then I’m good enough.
But your worth doesn’t begin only at the end of a difficult road. You aren’t wonderful only once you’re healed, brave and have fully arrived. You already are, right now. With your insecurities, your strengths and weaknesses, and with everything that hasn’t been sorted out yet. Even in the middle of upheaval, you are already you.
Self-love isn’t this big, always-positive feeling everyone talks about. It’s the beginning of an insight: “I’m going to stop judging myself for what I need right now.”
With a break, without guilt. With a no that was long overdue. With an honest conversation. Or simply with the thought that today you don’t have to do any more to be worthy.
You are wonderful – even on the days when you can’t believe it yourself.🖤🖤🖤
As a survivor of a traumatic childhood, I'm not speaking as a psychological counselor; I'm telling you about my own life experience and sharing what I've learned.