There is a beauty in knowing who you are. There is an unrelenting strength in understanding all there is about you. The importance of embracing that truth and appreciating its freeing abilities from the emotional baggage you carry upon your shoulders cannot be stressed enough. For it is through introspection and outward expression that you will be able to uncover all that hides your beauty, thus allowing such beauty to invalidate any social standards from containing it.
For some time, the outlook I had for myself consistently hung below the mark of content. Throughout high school my rambunctious exterior, fabricated of over-the-top ice-breakers and the unrelenting need to provide the class with obnoxious knee-slappers, got me through facing my true self. I used my sense of humor as an alter-ego to deter any chance that someone might stop and question who I was. And so developed my escape from reality, a chance to be someone else whose thoughts did not weigh so heavily, and whose emotions were not so deep.
It was not until I had started college that people began questioning what I wanted to be, where I wanted to end up, what I thought about this issue or that topic, my religious beliefs, political views, and morals. These questions were basic, common knowledge to those who knew themselves. I did not know myself. Realizing late in the game that my humor and wit would only carry me so far, I began searching for answers to all the questions. Left and right, there I was taking this online career quiz or reading that personality book. I began turning to the people around me to tell me who they thought I was. I went to church at the chance that religious ideals would provide an epiphany that might direct me. I even took on the ideas and truths of others and convinced myself they were my own. It was not until I took a step back from finding the person that people would enjoy, and faced the fact that I had been lying to protect myself from judgment, that I could finally be honest with myself.
For so long, I had tucked myself away, replacing my thoughts and emotions with a socially accepted guise that I ended up censoring myself from any form of self-understanding and acceptance. Once I was able to realize this, I was able to take a fresh breath of air and start uncovering the layers of lies I had so tightly wrapped myself in. I began journaling, writing every day to release that which had been blocked from expression. I allowed my creativity to flow, feeding into my ideas and allowing them to manifest themselves into stories, prayers, drawings, paintings, fears and dreams. Being able to present such beauty to myself, I found, relieved me of the apprehension I had towards embracing all I had to offer. And by engaging in such introspection and outward expression, I was able to present to others the real me, the person behind the mask, the honesty.
It is truly freeing once you are able to find out the deeper sides of yourself. To peel back the layers and find out who you are, why you are, and who you want to be, are the only things you can do to maintain emotional well-being. Taking the time to understand that social standards produce little happiness and much suppression has allowed me to face why I never faced myself before: I had no real grasp of self, no appreciation for my individualism, and thus, no form of understanding or content towards who I was. I had lied about being one person to protect myself from rejection. But once I freed myself out of the mold I desperately wanted myself fit, as to be like everyone else, I realized that who I am is more than who I was pretending to be. What I had to offer was more than any lie could overshadow. For it is an absolute truth that beauty can only develop from the honest mind. Once you seek out and accept such truth, diving whole-heartedly into introspection and creative expression, you will no longer be fearful of expressing your beauty.
