I am 37… three years from 40! THIRTY-SEVEN!!!! But dude, like where am I? I feel like I am just now realizing who I am, what I like and my purpose. I wasted so much of my life being pressed on relationships, meaningless friendships and trying to be perfect… now it's like, what next?

I am not self-hating, I'm actually in love with myself more now than I have ever been. I feel like I lost a lot of dead weight. People who pretended to be my cheerleader but were adding more on my plate with negative conversations and secret hate for me.

If you look around you and feel like everyone is better than you, take a different look. I had people who I placed on a pedestal, wishing my life was more like theirs. Take a deeper look, everything that glitters ain't gold. I truly understand that so much more than I did ten years ago.

I have been through so much. So much more than 90% of the people I know, know about me. I have been sexually assaulted 4 times, physically assaulted and attacked more times than I can count; I was bullied; I had a gun to my head; I was mentally abused by so many; I was kidnapped once; the police beat my ass at 16, I have loved and lost over and over again. I went through a cycle for years where I thought the only thing that could help me was alcohol, drugs or withdrawal from reality.

I expected people to be a friend to me when I wasn't a friend to myself. Everyone said, when you turn 30, life will change. Boy has it. At one point over the last 7 years, I looked in the mirror and realized I didn't know who was looking back at me. I let others define what I needed to do with my life. I crashed. My body gave me an ultimatum, either I was going to change my life, or my body was going to give up on me.

I believe that everything and everyone is placed in your life at the right time and moment. Some beautiful souls came and explained to me about Gaia, about meditation, about self-love. I realized that I was speaking so bad to myself. I was speaking all the bad things to happen, and I wasn't learning the lessons in life I needed to learn. I was destroying me, not what happened to me, not what was said to me. My words were what was killing me.

I changed. It was not an easy journey. Trust, I had some ugly cry moments, some screaming and some self-reflection. I had to heal myself from within, so I could truly love myself again. Now as I start over, I am stronger. I no longer in competition with anyone or myself. I am living life on my terms. So just know if you come looking and a different person answers, the old Tiffany is gone.