Out Of The Woods

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
 – Buddha

“You are not as beautiful or as handsome as she/he is” , “You are not enough” , “You will never be as successful as her or him” , ” You are going to end up just like everyone in your life who has been a great fail.” I could keep going on really , the list is endless.

These are some of the things people from different walks of life grow up hearing or being told. Many of us have had these coming from people who have raised us or were simply close to us growing up , the people who were supposed to help mold us into what we preferably are today.

The negativity , the mental and emotional torture that comes with simple statements like this may seem like nothing at all to the people who are issuing them out , but simple statements like these have a great impact on people who are the recipients in all these stories.

Growing up , I remember getting many of these said to me from friends at school to distant family members who knew absolutely nothing about me. For one, I attended mostly girl-boy schools from around age nine to twelve. Well , its expected of little boys to tend to like “beautiful” little girls at these ages , innocently , not knowing what love really is but that is not the point of this. Back in one of the schools I went to around that age , I had a boyish look to me ; big eyes , a round face , bunny teeth , no hair etc. I never got a single boy come to me and tell me I was pretty or beautiful or anything that was being told to the other girls. I would sit endlessly and ponder, wonder , Why?

What did the other girls have that I did not have? At that age , girls start having physical body change and well , those changes did not happen in my life up to age fourteen (way past the time I had left primary school). So these questions stayed in my head for over four years, I would often get “bashed” for looking like one of the boys. This kept me up at night , had my mind drifting off every now and then during classes and so much more.

It wasn’t until age 15 when I received my very first love letter from a boy that I gained confidence that I do not look that bad. In fact at this age, I can pretty say boys had started noticing my presence in the different places I went. This was the therapy that got me confident with my body and my looks , had a positive impact on what I thought was, basically changed the dynamics of what sat in my brain and heart.

Those little words he wrote down had a great impact on me and I doubt he knows that until now, I do not even remember who he was or his name at that but I remember the letter, I remember his words.I remember how beautiful they may me feel , how nervous he was when he was handing me that letter and how scared I was to open it.To be honest I did not date anyone up to age nineteen or twenty way after high school, in my first year of university. I did not accept his little boy offer to date but I accepted the letter, I took those words , clung onto them like my life depended on it and kept telling myself am what he had jotted down ; Beautiful, collected, charming, funny and so many more words he had used to show his interest towards me.

The words he wrote to me changed my perspective of how I had always seen myself , I gained that self love , I would walk in beauty. To understand what self love really meant.I learnt that I was not bad looking at all because when I changed the way I thought about myself , I noticed that the opposite sex equally changed their view towards me.

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
– Mark Twain

When I learnt the importance of self love , self worth , that is when I finally left the woods. The dark place I had built up in my head about myself based on what the people around me said.

This is the case for many of us, we tend to dwell on what people say about us to define who we are , we cling onto the negativity , onto how they make us feel and let their little words prick at us and affect most aspects of our lives.

One thing I have learnt in this life is that no man has the ability to define who you are , how you are to live your life , your destiny , what you do , how you look like and so on. This is just something we make ourselves believe. We use the words said to us as excuses to sulk and lead wrecked up lives.

It has to start with you. You have to wake up and redefine who you are if you haven’t, redefine how you want to live your life. Be an island within, an island which can cause storms in the sea when it moves , when it speaks , when it flourishes with fruit and all.

Self love comes from within. Stand up , learn to love you before anyone else , know your worth to the extent that no man’s words or actions towards you can deter you from your path or redefine who you are.

Stand up and get out of the woods.

Love, Dee.

The first picture is of a younger me at around age 9 or 10 , the second picture is me right now , 23 and flourishing.

OUT OF THE WOODS CLEARLY.