Dear Gorgeous Soul Sister,

I don’t know about you but I feel like 2017 is the year for me to take off the masks I wear and fully be who I am! We are all here with unique gifts, that the world needs, and we can’t find them if we are sticking to our boxes or following the crowd, instead of following our unique impulses.

In February last year I gave a talk at Duke University’s Women’s Weekend titled, How Free Are You To Be Fully Yourself As A Woman? I spoke about how I abandoned myself as a woman in order to succeed in a man’s world and how this left me feeling like an imposter.

I remember several years later when I became a full time mother in the South of France and I was once again lost in a quest for being perfect. I was sitting with my therapist and asked, “What does it mean to be a woman?” I felt there were so many rules for how I needed to be in order to be a ‘good woman’, a good wife, a good mother. I realised that I held so much fear about getting it wrong that I was actually in rejection of myself. I think I had always unconsciously wished I was a man because it seemed so much easier!

Over the holidays and I read an amazing book called ‘Love Warrior‘ by Glennon Doyle Melton. In ‘Love Warrior‘, which is a memoir, Glennon addresses her need to unlearn everything she’s been taught about what it means to be a man or a woman in order to create intimacy with her husband. Glennon talks about how when the pain is too much or there is too much fear, she sends out her ‘representative’ into the world. Her representative is who she feels she needs to be for others to accept her. Do you send your representative out in the world in order to protect yourself? I certainly have.

For so long there were parts of me that I kept in the shadows, afraid that if others saw them, I would never be loved or accepted. The more I have claimed these parts, the less I need to hide, and the more I can let my light shine. I used to look to others for permission to be who I was, always wanting to please others and abandoning myself in the meantime.

I’ve spent so much of my life feeling I had to become someone because who I was wasn’t ‘good enough’. Earlier this week I saw this quote which really sums it up:

NOW feels like the time to be yourself fully and not ask for permission. Now is the time to take off the masks of how we need to be so we can share all of our unique gifts with the world.

Hugs and love,