Please enjoy this excerpt from the
Introduction of my newest book: Braving It!
Imagine the happy/healthy/sane feeling that comes from living true to our unique goals, talents, and passions.
Picture…
- Not having to apologize for who we are or what makes us different.
- Not having to pretend — anything — so we can fit in or impress someone.
- Taking pride in what we’re good at and being confident to talk about it.
- Knowing we’re enough as we are.
- Being relaxed and comfortable in our bodies, behind our eyes.
- Saying yes without fear and no without guilt.
- Not needing the approval of other people.
- Knowing that we deserve to be loved just for who we are not because of anything we did for someone or could potentially do for them.
This is the promise of Braving It, beautiful someone. Together, we’ll build the strength to tune out the negative voices and genuinely appreciate who we are as unique individuals. We’ll build the confidence to be true to the love in our hearts for people we consciously choose to surround ourselves with.
Self-love and self-respect
We will learn to love our unique talents and never put these gifts down in any way, especially to make someone else feel comfortable. We’ll cultivate the self-love and self-respect that enable us to know our choices are not wrong simply because they may be different from the crowd’s or what we see online. We’ll discover how to find or create meaningful work we truly love and show up for every day with energy and excitement.
And, so important: we will know that how we look, what brings us joy, what sucks the life out of us, how we want to spend our time… No matter how similar or different they are to everyone else’s, these choices are not right or wrong.
They are just one thing: ours.