"Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less than perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful." -Mark Victor Hansen
My name is Erin, and I am no longer lost.
Before you think I sound braggy or self-inflating, I’ll be honest: the journey was not pretty. It was not without its pitfalls. And messes, and god-awful accidents, of both the foot-in-mouth and potty-type variety. It has been a journey of trial and (mostly) error, like a road trip with the rudest, smelliest, pit-stainy-est people you can think of, crammed into a tiny vehicle after an all-you-can-eat Cajun food festival, without any windows down and zero chance for bathroom breaks. “Next Rest Stop – 3582 miles.” UNCOMFORTABLE. Sad. Gross. Pungent and thick, and progress so slow you’d think the earth itself had stopped turning.
That was my journey to finding myself, but I MADE IT. As ugly as it got, I stuck it out. I fought and cried and clawed, searched and accepted and found, and I am no longer lost.
For as long as I can remember I have struggled to escape the circumstances of my life. I have battled sexual assault, molestation, physical abuse, mental abuse. I struggled on the reg with bulimia, anorexia, depression, addiction, and body dysmorphia. I have hated myself, berated myself, and cut myself to pieces, treating myself in ways I’d never treat another human being, not even my worst enemy. I have felt unloved, unworthy, disgusting, disposable. For the longest time I believed myself to be a living mistake, like a cosmic joke played by God on the Universe. “Haha, look at what I did with THAT one.”
I was so wrong.
If you have ever felt that way, YOU are wrong.
We are not worthless. We are amazing creatures, unique and specific, treasures to those around us and the Universe that houses us. We just have to believe it.
And most of us DON’T believe it.