This post is about something I’ve been struggling with personally and something that I feel a lot of the world is too. I’ve been struggling with the fact that I allow outside influences to disrupt my inner peace. How many of y’all feel like outside influences distort your mission or view of yourself? It puts negative ideas, words, self-talk into your being that were never meant to be there. It pushes out the good and leaves us feeling less than. I watch the news, I read magazines, I watch professional sports and all of these outlets per say are piling on seeds of doubt and comparison into my world. I started to write this for young girls and women and I caught myself doing exactly what I don’t want to happen. We associate certain things to women and certain things to men but let’s be real for a moment, gender roles and norms are dying and thank god! It’s not just women who battle with negative self-talk but boys and men, it’s universal. So, this post is for anyone and everyone.
Boxes, we were never meant to be lived in and worse put people in them. BOXES PUT BOUNDARIES UP AND LIFE IS NOT ABOUT BOUNDARIES BUT THE INBETWEEN. Life is not black and white so we have to stop forcing it to be, you don’t learn in black and white, you learn in the grey. WE ONLY HURT OURSELVES AND OTHERS WHEN WE SUBJECT PEOPLE TO LABELS, IDEAS, AND EXPECTATIONS. We are all different but that beauty has been twisted and turned into a competition. We compete everyday with people and we don’t even know we are doing it. In our society we push people to be number one and to be the best they can be but we don’t stop there because instead of focusing on that individual we pin them against someone else. We thrive off of the “winning attitude” and idea, if we aren’t first, well we don’t even talk about it because it’s not accepted. I think about men in sports, young boys, always having to live up to these expectations of being the best athlete or being the money maker for the family. I think of women who feel like they have to dress perfect, have the perfect family, and be the perfect mom. We add immense pressure to people to be something that maybe they were never meant to be. Every day we are in a competition with others, with the way we dress, talk, what car we drive, our position at work…it’s never ending. If we can’t beat you at sports, then we will beat you with our looks or our status. WE HAVE CREATED A CULTURE WHERE WE HURT ONE ANOTHER AND OURSELVES BY STRIVING TO GET TO THE TOP OF THIS IMPOSSIBLE MOUNTAIN THAT HAS BEEN CREATED BY MASS MEDIA, PRESSURE, STANDARDS, IDEAS, ETC… We have it all wrong creating this unhealthy competitive drive separating ourselves from who we really are and the people around us.
I’ve been thinking about this idea of boxes when I went to a bar the other night and tried something. I had a male bartender who I asked to surprise me with a drink. I told him to pick anything that he thought would fit me and that he thought I would like. He came back with this pink fruity drink he made. I asked him why that drink? Why something pink? And he said, “Simple you’re a girl and most girls like pink and fruity things”. I asked him if he realized what he just did and he shook his head. This people is exactly what I’m talking about. Here this gentleman saw a young girl and automatically associated girly things to her and the color pink. I told him to take the drink back and to give me tequila, he was shocked. We do this every day and we don’t even realize it. We put these stereotypes on people and lock them inside these ideas that society has put out there. Boys must be men and men can’t cry, they can’t show emotion, they have to support the family, they have to be strong. Women have to be skinny, be beautiful, be the perfect girlfriend or mom and let the man do the rest. STOPPPPPPPPPPP.
We shut people down and who they really are by forcing them to fit this idea. WE ARE RUINING OUR INNER PEACE BY TRYING TO KEEP UP WITH WHAT SOCIETY EXPECTS FROM US INSTEAD OF WHAT WE EXPECT. We are climbing this exhausting impossible mountain and the higher up we go the more we burry our true selves. We are scared to stray from the expected because we are then seen as weak. I’m here to tell you and myself that we have to stop shutting off our inner selves in order to compete and maintain societal norms. My heart hurts thinking about all the years I hid a part of me because society labeled it as wrong. It pains me to think about the pressure we are putting on young boys and girls. So, how do we find our inner peace? How do we stay true to our mission and our being?
It all starts with taking the pads off, taking the makeup off, taking the mask off that we felt like we needed to wear. It starts with taking a step out of the box that we put ourselves in or were shoved in by others. It’s about listening to your inner being and being still. Shutting out all the outside voices and the negative self-talk and realizing what really sets our soul on fire. Society isn’t laying up with you at night listening to your soul; society doesn’t know what drives you or what path you are on. Stop lying to yourself and others by trying to be something that isn’t true to who you are. Don’t be scared to show your inner self because only then are you really living. Hiding who you are, who you want to be, what you want to do, who you really love is not living, but you have the option to change that. Stop looking to the side and comparing, stop being in the crowd of people who pin people against people. We were never meant to compete but to come together through our differences. Our differences are what make us who we are. They aren’t a platform for change or competition.
Little girls look at images and think they aren’t pretty enough, skinny enough, tall enough. Little boys are forced to hold up the standard of being strong, fearless, the best athlete, the supporter, the money maker. Those ideas we feed them then follow them throughout their life and it comes out in unhealthy ways. Girls are bullied in middle school, they are shamed when they express their sexuality, they feel like they must always be dating someone or have the storybook life. Boys are told they must be men and men aren’t scared, they don’t show emotion, they make the big bucks and drive the nicest car, they can’t be feminine or shed a tear.
We cannot allow outside influences to disrupt our inner peace and being. WE HAVE TO SET OURSELVES FREE AND IN THE PROCESS SET OTHERS FREE FROM THE BOXES AND STEROTYPES WE PUT THEM IN. We (I) have to stop looking at others and pressuring myself to change my foundation to beat them or be on their level. People and things don’t bring us to where we need to be; only we can walk ourselves there. Sure, others elevate us but we ultimately do the walking. We can’t rely on others to make us this person we are trying to be. It’s like when you’re on the airplane and they say to do your mask first. Same thing in life. You have to know yourself, love yourself, and then decide what you want BUT do it for you.
Focus on what makes you, you. Then love it, love it unconditionally, without limits, without exceptions, without comparison. Cut out all the voices in your head that tell you that you need to be better, work harder, that you aren’t good enough, or you need to change. Right now, in this moment you are who you are and it starts there. It doesn’t start where you want to be or will be in a few weeks. Life is about accepting yourself for who you are for exactly where you are. We aren’t always in the place we want to be but if we ignore that starting place then we will never get to the next with the lessons that were planted throughout the journey.
Let’s move forward and more forward together, bettering ourselves and others. Stop putting people in boxes based off their religion, life, love, ethnicity, etc.… Don’t compete with others or look to your side, instead look forward and only move ahead. Accept where you are and take advantage of every lesson sent your way. People aren’t supposed to lock each other up but set one another free. Put your own oxygen mask on then put on your neighbors. Bring love back into the picture and take out competition. See people for who they are and not how society sees them. Celebrate differences and use them as a basis for community instead of competition.
You are you and you are exactly who you need to be. Take a deep breath and know that you are exactly where you need to be.