I’ve done a lot of self-reflecting over the past week and I have come to the conclusion that there are a lot of times that I simply refuse, to be honest with myself. I create walls around my consciousness to block out all of the bad things I could think about in order to protect myself. It’s no way to live your life, so I decided that my first post would be dedicated to telling the truth to the person it’s hardest, to be honest with… Myself. So here goes nothing:

1. I don’t like being honest with myself because it opens up a lot of wounds that haven’t healed because I put a bandage on them instead of fixing them.

2. I’m terrified that once I’m honest with myself, I won’t like the person that I am.

3. I’m scared that if I don’t like myself, then other people won’t like me either.

4. I’m afraid of disappointing people, so I put up walls to keep people away so I can’t hurt them.

5. I’m really scared of disappointing my mom and dad because sometimes I feel like I’m the person who’s carrying the weight of our family on my shoulders.

6. I like to joke that I’d be perfectly happy becoming a cat lady when I get older, but deep down I’m scared that I will never find someone who loves me enough to stay through all the bad times.

7. I’m scared that the person I’m in love with will never feel the way I do.

8. I’m afraid that I’m two and a half years into a degree that I will never be successful in.

9. I’m petrified at the thought of leaving this world without doing anything with my life.

10. I’m scared that you’ve stopped reading by now because you can’t relate to these things and I’m alone on this one.

I hope you stayed, but I hope whoever is reading this can’t relate. These are tough realities I’ve been facing, and I understand why I’ve been running from them for so long. These things hurt. Life hurts. But I have decided that I will have no more walls to hide my fears away from myself, because, in self-actualization, I become stronger. In admittance, these fears no longer have any hold over me.

So, I hope you’re honest with yourself too.

I hope you know that you never have to face your fears alone.

I hope you know that you are bigger than your fears.

I hope you know that you will make it.