Not Guilty

I wish more people would talk about how easy it is think yourself out of your dreams because you feel you’re not good enough. How the ghosts of past failures, traumas and pain haunt your existence in the present turning it into a sad fable of what could’ve been instead of what is.

 I don’t know how many times I’ve talked myself out of taking that first step, shooting that video of myself performing one of my favourite monologues, writing a script of a love story I’ve been envisioning my whole life or curating the content I’ve been saving on Pinterest because the layers of insecurities cultivated by all that I’d been through were screaming and I’d allowed them to be louder than my ambition. When I look back now I only realise how much time I’ve wasted. And not in a “blame myself” way but rather in a “you deserve so much more” kind of way. The truth is I cannot deny the effects that life and its experiences have had on me. I cannot deny the mental, emotional and spiritual impact that circumstances have imprinted on the canvas of my life. However accepting and acknowledging them doesn’t mean that I deserve to be confined and defined by them. Because if I do that means I deserve to be stuck. And that’s not what I was created for.

 I was created to learn

I was created to grow

I was created to expand

I was created to impact.

I cannot do that if I willingly offer myself as a prisoner of my past.

I cannot do that if I continue to refuse to take off the prisoners apparel.

So in this season, I’m choosing to plead not guilty.

I’m choosing to be my own advocate and state my case unapologetically.

I’m also choosing to release myself from this unfair judgement that I’ve imposed upon me and finally be set free. To go out into the world, scars and all and confidently say :

 I am not my failures.

 I am not my mistakes.

I am not my addictions.

 I am not my fears.

 I am not my pain.

I am not my insecurities.

I am so much more.

And I refuse to be defined by anything else but who I truly am.