What Will People Think?

Instagram may not be the perfect platform, but I can and will build up my business page. I’ve cultivated the courage to write and share extensively about my life. Dating alone is something I could dive deep into. My mind is looping, cycling through insecure thoughts, but that’s only because I’m being vulnerable in so many areas of my life.

A part of me creates stories—negative ones that have no data or logic. Even if these thoughts were true, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m showing up as my whole self, raw and vulnerable, across all parts of my life: in Ever Evolving, at Sychem, and in my personal life. I’m really putting myself out there, and sometimes, the emotional waves hit hard.

That voice—that one feeding you shitty thoughts, making up stories about people mocking or judging you—is the "what will people think" voice. It's woven deep into your being, but it's not you. It’s the voice of your parents, ancestors, and culture, all passed down through generations. It’s been ingrained into your psyche to keep you small, to stay quiet, not to be vulnerable or disrupt the status quo. It's there to stop you from being truly yourself, to block the freedom of exposing your authentic self to the world.

The 'Other' Woman

Those words, those words we use to degrade and label others, are endless when it comes to women. Not to say that men aren't pressured by societal expectations—it's just that we bring women down so much more in our societies. We perfect them in our media, raise them on who they should be, not who they are.

Here’s the measure of a perfect woman:

Please spend your entire life working towards being someone and something unachievable, something that guarantees failure in the eyes of the complex society that surrounds you. Their gazes wrap around you, suffocating you. It's hard to breathe, hard to see your worth, to see your own beauty, because every morning when you look in the mirror, you see everything you aren’t.

You’ve built a wall. You’ve painted someone else onto your mirrors, someone you want to see because society has formed the model you must aspire to be.

Every now and then, you peek behind the painting, but you quickly step back because you’ve failed to become the "other." All that’s left is you—a beautiful you—tucked beneath the layers of expectations that others have thrown on you, expectations you can never fulfill. Because we can never be someone else when we are our self.

How could you possibly be the "other"? Where would the "other" fit inside you? There’s no reason to try, because you have your own heart, your own soul, your body, and your mind. You’ve been wearing the clothes of the "other," but they will never penetrate your being.

So, you failed to become the woman you painted on your mirrors, and in the process, you’ve suppressed your self. Where do you stand now? In the middle of nowhere. You hate yourself and you’ve failed to become the "other."

Where are you now? How do you feel when you get home and take off the "other's" clothes?

When will you begin to remove the painting from your mirrors and replace it with the portrait of your self?

Pick up that shovel and rid yourself of the dirt that has been thrown over you your entire life. Show me. Show us. I beg you. We need you to express yourself. We cannot survive without you.

Let us see your self-portrait.

I love you. We love you. And you need to love you. Just allow yourself to be the beauty you’ve always been.