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Being true to yourself above all else...

I haven't always been good about being true to who I am. I am not a "pleaser" per se, but I hate to be the bad guy and I don't like to be wrong. Sometimes, though, being true to who you are and what you believe means that others aren't going to agree. We're not a land of lemmings even though in some instances it seems as though people do just follow the status quo and make due with what they've been fed. Good or bad...it's all about your perspective from the seat you're sitting in at the moment.

Do you have that mask you wear? The one that makes you acceptable to those around you. The one that shows you as what you think others want you to be...happy, successful, together...whatever you want them to see. All the while it's really lip service that you are paying to them and to yourself. There's "fake it till you make it" and there's fake it because you're trying to survive and don't know where the life preserver is to help you keep your head above water.

I wear the strong woman mask. Sometimes, the line between where the reality of who I am and who I pretend to be intersects. I know I am a strong woman and can accomplish anything I set out to achieve, but in other ways I am just as broken and damaged as anyone else and maybe more than some! My best friend wrote this in our shared journal: "I worry about you...--yes, you Xena the Warrior Princess--who I happen to think is much more fragile than even she thinks sometimes..." She is not the only one who saw my mask. There is another who called me out on that as well. I guess that is what happens when you find someone who really sees you for who you are and loves you anyway.

To those who really know me, my masks are invisible. They have seen me through those things or heard my life story about those places that broke me and damaged me and left me changed forever. Change is not always bad, though. Change has allowed me to wake up from the fog I was living in and live a real and full life. I have found my happy place and it is in the moment that is right now. I see the blessings around me. I embrace all that I am and all that I have to offer. I know my worth and that I am enough. I still believe...

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