“I am _____” is a powerful statement for manifesting, so, while in the past I would have begun this post with a confession—I’m insecure—today I will admit that I have insecurities. Like many adolescents I know, I have internal battles waging every day. It is like I live with a devil and an angel on each shoulder—my negative thought voice and my positive one. Napoleon would be proud of—or familiar with, at least—the campaigns my negative thought voice makes to try and expand its territory in my life. Thankfully, like a tired-less Russian winter my positive thought voice wears her down until she retreats to the shadows and is exiled once more.

If I’ve said it once, I have said it a billion, zillion, trentillion times: I get really frustrated with my insecurities. I think about how FREE I would feel if I never worried about the size of my a$$ ever again. How liberating it must be not to spend precious, life-force energy giving myself a pep-talk and taking deep breaths before entering certain social occasions. How fun I would be if the periodic dark cloud didn’t come along and absolutely monsoon on my freakin’ parade. How much less lonely I would feel if I could stop psyching myself out or beating myself up. How much more time I would spend LIVING instead of worrying.

In my frustration, I forget to ask myself, “what can I learn from this?” When I harshly critique myself for experiencing something as human as self-doubt, I miss the opportunity to see the strengths that I have developed due to—not in spite of—my perceived weaknesses.

Herein lies the superpower in my at-times-insecurity-riddled life: the moment when I got so fed up with playing small that I decided there was nothing to lose and I wanted to CHANGE. The magic of my inner critic is that she led me to a lifestyle in which she no longer occupies center stage.

My friends Miranda and Cailin have both made me question my understandings of strength and bravery, especially in the context of being vulnerable. Warring with my insecurities leaves me feeling weak. I feel strong wen I choose to make peace with my ego and my shadow. I show strength, as Miranda would say, when I share my story. But I wonder, why is it so “brave” to be honest—or as Cailin would say, to own our stories? I understand that in our perfectionist, scarcity mindset driven culture, it is courageous to step outside of the cultural norms and dare to fail or risk not being “good enough” (and boy do I detest that phrase), let alone share it on the internet. As a woman, I feel the pressure to be confident, assertive, and so qualified that I cannot be overlooked. Admitting that I fake confidence on a regular basis does not agree with that narrative. But, I would rather fake confidence whilst being my authentic self than confidently pretend to be someone I am not.

Beyond leading me to here—a blog dedicated to telling the story of a holistic journey to freedom—the once crippling insecurities I have dealt with (and whose ghosts I continue to encounter) sculpted me into a more empathetic, compassionate person. I also take the actions of others, particularly the hurtful ones, far less personally. Wrestling with my own demons has served as firsthand evidence that hurt people hurt people. Re-programming myself to a default setting of self-love, however, demonstrated to me that healed people heal people.

So much of my thoughtfulness, knack for having a quote to pull up in just about any situation, kindness, and compassion stem from BEING THERE. I know how it feels to have someone hold space for me when I needed it. How nourishing at a soul-level it is to experience compassion from a stranger on a bad day. How a compliment tailor-made for me can change the course of my day, let alone my life. We’re all just guiding each other home, and after living in a rabbit hole of insecurity, I feel like a well-equipped tour guide any chance I get to pick up a passenger, toss the car into 4-wheel-drive and muscle them out of the woods. Or, when I have the opportunity not to fix, but to sit with.

My insecurities are my superpower because they’re the crucible through which I have emerged the woman I am today.

The woman I am today, one who is dedicating to influencing the energy of my environment, not adapting to it. One who will abandon the world before abandoning herself. One who encourages others to show up boldly, not to shrink. One who knows that suffering is necessary until we understand that it is not. One whose light can be used to brighten that of another. One whose weirdness serves as a green-light-GO! not to take life so seriously.

My insecurities compel me to treat everyone with kindness and dignity, because within every person exists multitudes that never meet the eye. I think of the times when I thought it was so obvious that I was speaking with a shaking voice, but all other people seemed to remember was me standing up for my beliefs. I was puzzled. I thought everyone knew that my legs were wobbling behind the podium and I cried in front of my entire high school student body and I didn’t want to go into school the next day. Unfortunately, we humans don’t get to spend a day in one another’s heads. We don’t see the super-computer chip and the coding going into people’s decision-making. We see the monitor. What is within our human capacities, however, is the ability to witness our own programming—typos and all—and offer others the grace we’d hope to receive.

I believe that we’re all doing our best, especially given the mental gymnastics so many of us perform on a daily basis. If you’re anything like me and share in this struggle-born-commitment to love yourself, insecurities INCLUDED, try to see your inner critic through a lens of love. How has your negative thought voice helped you to be more considerate? To choose compassion and/or walking away instead of picking a fight? We have the power to heal ourselves and others simply through acknowledging that this whole human thing is difficult, and everyone has a story. Allow your own complexities and contradictions to serve as evidence that everyone is fighting a battle or two that we cannot see.

Simply striving to be kind—to others and ourselves—is a heroic act. Our sensitivity is our superpower.

With love, Fi (and her no shortage of insecurities)