Shake It Out

Who I am is a thirty year old woman who has always tried to balance what is expected of her and what is definitive to being me. I have always worked hard to make my parents proud, but I did go to art school and not West Point. I graduated with honors, but I married the love of my life at 22. I worked two jobs through out college, but I once dated a boy with piercings and black fingernails. I am a likable person, not because there is anything overwhelming fantastic about me, but merely because I take the time to see the needs in other people and am intuitively sensitive to those needs, all the while holding on strongly  to very particular sense of self. I would be lying through my teeth, though, if I did not admit to struggling sometimes with my own sense of self worth. Am I pretty enough or strong enough. Am I a good mom. Am I patient. Am I honorable. Am I successful. Am I good wife. Am I good. Do I love enough. Am I enough. On a good day, I am able to say. "Yes. Yes I am." And on a bad day I bury my head into a pillow, beat my fists and cry, "NO! No I am not!!" (Ask my husband, he's seen this behavior in person.) We all struggle with this. We wonder why we feel like outsiders. We question our tenacity. We doubt our partners. We doubt ourselves. Many of us have done this for years. We have been sad for years. We blame our parents. (Sometimes rightfully, sometimes childly) We blame genetics. We linger on those who have mocked us. We hold on to our failures. We cling to pain. We label ourselves with fat or worthless. We give these feelings power. And sometimes it consumes us like a fire and we come crashing down. And then we have two choices. We can sit there in the ashes and play with matches or we can stand up and get a broom. (Or a Dyson, which I highly recommend if you have pets and small children.) The truth is, this moment is all you have. F the past. It's the past. Stop holding on to whatever and whoever you blame for your failures and your sadness. Be the need you have. If you need someone to push you, push yourself. If you need a cheerleader, grab some pom poms. If you need a hug,  take the two arms god gave you and squeeze.

And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back so shake him off.

"Shake it out"- Florence and the Machine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbN0nX61rIs