Putting it all out there

I have lived my life worrying a lot about what others think. I don’t open up and share my true thoughts with people very easily; I am private and guard my reputation fiercely.   I am not an introvert by any means—I will happily chat someone’s ear off about anything and everything if I don’t feel threatened.  But I am careful not to admit signs of weakness or things that will bring shame to me or my family. I grew up with my mom and dad being very concerned about their daughters’ reputations—we had to be the most well-behaved, the smartest, the most professional, the most put together. It was like a competition among their church friends’ kids and us…who could play the violin better? Who was the furthest ahead in Kumon math levels? Who didn’t have a boyfriend and instead focused on their studies?  (Can you tell I’m part Chinese? A lot of this I think was cultural.) Heaven forbid if one of the families from church gossiped about us…it was devastating. But I realize now that that’s because we let it be devasting. We gave those people power to shape how we felt and therefore how we acted.  That still lingers with me today and I think it’s been incredibly damaging to me achieving some pretty important life goals.  But I’m all grown up now, a big girl at 34 years old, and it’s high time I live without fear of judgement.  I’m growing mighty weary of this nagging voice in my head that says, “what will THEY think? What will THEY say?”  I've lived my life ensuring I save face and I come across as put together, strong, successful, happy, etc. I think it would be freeing to let all that bull go and just be able to say, “hey, world, I am being genuine and if you don’t like it, go somewhere else. Your opinions are not mine to bear.” So that is what I am doing…my first blog posts are me claiming my right to be me, to be unapologetic about who I am, and to drop that extra baggage I've been carrying around—the baggage of others’ opinions and influences that just hinder my ability to live powerfully and honestly.  If I can’t do this I don’t think there is a point in having a blog because it probably wouldn’t be genuinely me. And that does no one any good, especially me.

 So, now let’s just move forward with…me!