Stage One, Childhood: Fearless Little Dreamer
When you're a kid, anything NATURALLY seems possible. This is because we aren't yet exposed to the realities of the world yet at this point, especially the harsh ones. Life seems exciting, magic feels real and anything seems possible, because we all have one thing as children, IMAGINATION. (Don't act like you also didn't just think of Spongebob with the rainbow over his head.) Well trust me, I was a child with an imagination. I was always playing pretend out in my backyard, putting on "plays" with my younger sister and best friend who lived across the street (well, they were more like home movies, my mother video taping us acting out scenes on our giant black 90's video camera), and speaking of the camera, being in front of it was where I yearned to be. I wouldn't even hesitate to say as a child I might have been a little "out there", as there are countless video recordings my mother has of me running around pretending to be characters and telling a story to no one in particular. Long story short, I did not care about what anyone thought about my actions. I would say, and do whatever I felt like. I would even dare to say that I was pretty outgoing as a child, at least from age 4 to around 8...but we will get to that soon. But really, I don't feel like I was alone in this behavior. As children, we all feel like we can be anything, go anywhere and do anything. There is nothing and no ONE telling us we can't, (Well, unless we are being bad and upsetting our parents). The thing is, at this age you are in your truest and most naturally confident stage. The things you are drawn to are your deeply rooted passions. The joy you feel is REAL joy. This is the stage that we need to train ourselves to go back to as adults in terms of feeling confident and positive, because as we start to grow, it goes away. And trust me, it did for me.
Light Energy Tip: If we can channel what made us "light up" as a child, before fear and doubts and insecurities, we can channel what we have always truly desired and how we should always feel about ourselves, life and it's possibilities.
Stage Two, Elementary/Middle School: Insecure and Afraid, What is wrong with Me?
By the time I entered around first or second grade, I began to get bullied and teased at school. I don't really remember why...I don't remember what even started it. But I know that I began to get made fun of, usually when I was being myself. I liked nerdy things when I was a kid. Pokemon, video games, cartoons....well I shouldn't say when I was a kid, I still like those things. And as open and confident as I was at home, playing pretend with my closest friend and sister, making plays, being silly...I would act the same way at school. That WAS until I started getting bullied. "Geek", "Nerd", "Baby", and many others were names I was called in second, third and forth grade when I would be expressive about my personal interests. I also wasn't very good at sports...and for whatever reason, at the Catholic Elementary School I went to at the time, all of the "cool kids" were good athletes, so this didn't help my confidence either. Before I knew it, I had developed a severe case of social anxiety. I went from being one way during my home life (imaginative, silly, outgoing and fun), to a completely different way at school (totally quiet and closed off). I was able to make maybe one or two friends here and there with the equally shy kids, but the funny thing about this time period was that I wasn't ACTUALLY a shy kid. I became shy because the bullying made me feel ashamed, and "weird", so I felt that if I were to be myself...well, I would be terrified. My social anxiety got so bad that it developed into actual panic attacks. My heart would beat so fast, I wouldn't know what to do. One day I remember sitting in the car with my mom in around 6th grade, crying and screaming that I couldn't walk into the building because I would have a heart attack. It wasn't a time of my life that I'm fond of, and it's one that I'll always remember the pain from.
Light Energy Tip: We shouldn't let other people's opinions scare us out of letting our true selves shine through. At the end of the day, harsh words are only harsh words, and shouldn't be a reason to hide who we really are.
Stage Three, High School: I'm Cool Now (On the Outside)
By the time I hit 8th grade, around age 13 or 14, naturally I started to become interested in normal preteen types of things. But one big change I made was in my appearance. I started to care more about trying to look nice. I started to wear make up, I traded in my glasses for learning how to wear contacts, (Which for me was HUGE, because my glasses always made me feel like such a "dork", and I envied all of the "pretty popular girls" who didn't need them), and I just in general changed my entire look. Now this is a normal thing that people DO when they enter their teenage years. It's natural to want to start wearing make up and looking pretty at this age, but the big difference for me was, I was still just as anxious and terrified of social interaction. I was the same person inside with the same nerdy interests, comfortable home life, and HUGE fear of my peers at school, but I looked different. I began to get more attention from people at this age, especially boys in my classes. This made me BEYOND terrified, because being someone who developed an issue with social anxiety, all of the attention wasn't something that made me feel comfortable. I also started getting into modeling at this age, by choice because it was something I was interested in. This DID help raise my confidence, but if I am being completely honest, all that I was confident about was the way that I looked. The glasses came off, but the heart palpitations never went away, all the way until around my sophomore year of high school.
Light Energy Tip: Outward appearances don't mean anything when it comes to who you ARE as a person. Changing something on the outside won't completely increase your love, confidence and acceptance of yourself on the inside.
Stage Four, Late High School, Early College: I'm Doing What I'm Supposed to Do....FIT IN
But probably around my senior year of High School, I was finally beginning to come out of my social anxiety and shyness. I had a small group of friends, I was a little more social and felt more comfortable around other people (but not completely), and I had found a passion and love in Musical Theater. I will always be grateful for Musical Theater and my experience of it in High School, because it really DID help me to feel more confident in more of a real way, and like I was accepted by a community. But even during this time period, I still remember being shy in all of the plays I did to a point, and the most attention I would receive was still over the way that I looked. This followed me into my first two years of college. Without thinking much about what I wanted to do, I figured, "Well I might as well go to college for theater!" Naturally that is what happened. I studied Musical Theater for two years at a small college in Pennsylvania, and this was a very um...interesting part of my life. Confidence wise, I had somehow developed some odd sense of "fake confidence", and it wasn't a good thing. I was terrified to be away from home for the first time, plunged into an entire sea of NEW peers, still not being sure of how to act around them completely. I had this weird obsession with trying to be cool, and I gravitated towards girls who seemed "cool and pretty". I ultimately for the first year, didn't make any REAL friends, because I didn't really have much in common with these girls I thought I should be hanging out with. If anything, my peers kind of just thought of me as vain or not having much of a personality, and well, that's because I wasn't letting mine show and I wasn't thinking with my heart. I was thinking very superficially and it got me into many situations that resulted in me feeling hurt, STILL made fun of, and still alone. No one really cared, and this is exactly how I felt. I knew I needed a change, and I began to reconsider my path.
Light Energy Tip: Let who you are as a person, deep in your soul, determine who you gravitate towards. Don't create a character for yourself that you feel you "should" be.
Stage Five, College: I'm Doing What Everyone else is Telling Me to Do
I ended up transferring into a new college to study classical singing after my sophomore year at my original one. I honestly was interested in this more specifically at the time than I was in Musical Theater, I was good at it, and it felt like the right choice. Plus, after the pretty bad social experiences I had at my first college, a new start sounded perfect. I felt really good when I first started at music school. I was studying something I felt good at and noticed for. I was still a bit shy, definitely, and hesitant about letting people see the real me, but I did feel genuinely for the first time, feel good about myself in ways. But, I felt that my need to please others during this time period was blending in with my need to excel at music, to the point of giving me anxiety. I did feel passionate about starting music school, but over time, I started to realize that classical music specifically, wasn't something that I felt passionate about enough on it's own to dedicate my life to. I started it because many people encouraged me to. My parents were proud, for once I felt noticed...it was similar to the modeling. I was making people happy and proud and look at me, but was what I was doing making ME happy? Eventually, I began to realize that I was simply trying to do what I felt I should do, but not what I WANTED to do. After re-developing my panic attack episodes among other mental health issues arising, I realized that I needed to figure out what I, myself actually wanted. I made the difficult decision to leave music school and change my major.
Light Energy Tip: Always do what YOU love, not what others would LOVE you to do.
Stage Six, College, The"Best Years": I'm Finally Finding out Who I Really Am (and KIND of showing it)
If you let out a giggle over the top picture, I don't blame you. During this time period I WAS one of those people who referred to myself as a "hipster", and thought that was cool. But this was like around 2014 people so, come on now. Once I changed my major (to a BA in Theater Arts and a minor in Music), I began to get involved in student run theater around the school. I started to express myself in unique ways in my own sense of fashion, and wasn't focusing so hard on trying to look like a "hot party girl" because I thought that was what would make me feel like I fit in. I was more comfortable trying to express what made me, well, ME, and I started to feel drawn more towards people with actual interests similar to mine. During this time, especially in the theater shows I was involved in, I met some of the best friends I have ever made in my life. I began to have experiences with other people who really opened my eyes and made me think, and I began to feel genuinely appreciated and even loved by peers, for literally the first time ever. It was a great time of growth for me, because I was slowly realizing, "Wow, I can...actually kind of be myself and let that show through a little bit...and that's OK?". It was a scary (in a good way), silly, and beautiful time period for me. However, I definitely still wasn't TOTALLY comfortable with who I was. I would still go home and play video games and secretly feel ashamed to tell anyone, and I would still hide little details and quirks about myself that I thought would make me seem less "cool". I mean I was in a sense still trying to BE cool, but, I was a little tiny bit more cool with being me.
Light Energy Tip: Finding out what makes you unique is super important. And once you accept that about yourself, you'll slowly start to find similar people to you, who accept you too.
Stage Seven, The End of College: I'm in a Dark Hole, But You Don't Know That
Sigh....The dark times. Well, I actually want to do an entire blog post on this time period of my life eventually, because it wasn't a good one but a HUGE reason I am who I am today. Towards my final stretch of college, due to some personal obstacles and situations, I began to use dangerous negative habits. It got to a point that the habits were so bad that I didn't even realize how bad my choices were. But that's what happens when you spiral into a depression and lose a sense of hope...You don't care enough to realize when something in your life REALLY needs changing. So how did this state of mind and these bad decisions effect my confidence? Well, I was still doing well in my classes, and I was genuinely almost completely comfortable with who I was, what makes me, me, and just in general letting other people see that. The issue here was, I was being blocked of my true potential for happiness due to the demons in my life. I was acting outwardly "okay" to the world, even so much so that I was convinced that I WAS okay. I was so "fake okay", that after awhile I kind of felt nothing at all...and that was when I noticed that I was gone. I had lost myself. I knew something needed to be done. I needed to get myself back! You can be confident, and love yourself, and finally know who you are, but if you aren't treating your mind and body right....well, none of that means anything after awhile. Because negative forces in your life make you lose a sense of self, and your true self and happiness can only be activated when you are practicing self love and making the choices necessary to do so. By the end of my college career, I had made the choice to finally work on banishing my demons. It wasn't easy. I had to make a lot of lifestyle changes, but it had to be done. And, it's the best choice I've ever made.
Light Energy Tip: Once you find yourself and truly love and are okay with your TRUE self, you need to treat yourself with love BACK. Demons and negative energies will always prevent you from being your true self if you don't banish them.
Stage Eight, Post-College/Now: I am Happy being ME, and I am TRULY HAPPY
After making the changes I've needed to make to beat my demons and bad decisions, I finally graduated college last January. I can't believe it's already been more than a year. Man, did I learn a lot. But if I can say one thing, the biggest lesson that I've learned is that the journey to self acceptance AND true happiness, starts with actually accepting yourself, loving who you are and not being afraid to let that person be shown to the world, and then giving yourself the love you deserve. It's been a really long road for me to learn how to actually be confident in who I am and realize that who I am and have always been naturally is awesome, and worthy of love and acceptance. It's also been a long hard road for me to realize that taking care of my mind and body is equally as important as loving who I am. I truly do know the choices that I need to make in my life now to be happy. I am pursuing passions that truly do and always HAVE made me light up inside, and I'm pursuing them because I want to, I believe in myself and I don't care what anyone else thinks about my choices. I choose to surround myself with people who really love me, who I know I can depend on and who make me actually FEEL loved. And lastly, whenever I feel tempted to go down a dark path, or feel anxious or insecure again, I remind myself of all that I've learned. Is it really worth it? Going backwards after learning and experiencing and growing from all of this? I ask myself that simple question, and doing so keeps me right here, right now in this moment. I'm not perfect, because nobody is. But I've come a long way, and honestly if it wasn't for these experiences I've just shared, I don't think I would feel the way that I do now. I'm happy. I'm content. I feel enlightened and I feel free. And I just wanted to share my journey, for anyone who may have been curious enough to listen. Because speaking out is the best way to remind us all, that there is always a way, and a chance to love yourself and live a purely happy life, as who you are.
Light Energy Tip: You are a beautiful soul. Stay Lovely, Stay Vibrant and never give up hope.
