Tag Archives: guest post

Being awakened is a beautiful thing. And I don't just mean in a spiritual sense, although it is that, too. I mean truly discovering, or in most cases rediscovering, yourself- the one you put on a shelf because someone thought you were too much, too big, too wild, too whatever! We, women, tend to do that. In part, it's our collaborative nature. But it's also because, as young girls and women, we receive such mixed messages from everyone about what it means to be female.

Unhappy in my own skin for many years, I would wake up every day virtually paralyzed by my own fears. I would be tormented by the possibility that people would discover I was a fake; that I wasn’t whom I pretended to be. The persona I projected was this happy, fun-loving, care free, extremely funny girl who acted as though she had the world at her feet. But behind the happy mask that I wore for so many years was a deeply depressed and dependent soul, searching to be loved. I would drink to feel good about myself and suppress the pain, but after a while the numbing effects didn’t work. I became depressed and fearful all the time. My mask was gone.