The letter I wish someone had given me as a young woman

Oh boy. This one has me very emotional. Something about COVID life is giving me permission to really go back, to grieve, to regret, to see the mistakes of my youth and wish I could have whispered some major lessons into the ear of younger me. That old adage, "Youth is wasted on the youth" has rung true. If I could go back, I would have learned to love myself and do what I really wanted to 20 years ago. I would have been doing yoga, rock climbing, writing, dancing, singing, and hamming it up without apology. I would have cleared away time for creating, every single day. I would have stopped trying to prove myself to people who didn't fully understand me. For those of you who are 4's on the enneagram, you know what I mean.

Of course, it is not too late. It is never too late to start fresh. But here's what I wish I would have learned:

Dear young one,

Learn how to listen to that voice deep inside of you. It will require that you spend time away from friends, away from TV, away from your phone. You need to learn how to be in the deep quiet--in that space, you start to discover who you truly are.

Once you discover that, you will start to get clear on your life's mission. It may be surprising to learn that even though you've been pushing hard to become an engineer, deep down you know you are just supposed to sing. Or maybe you've been drowning in athletics, just based on so-and-so's expectations, but deep down you are a physicist. Maybe you are like Lady Gaga, lugging her piano around NYC to anyone who would listen, for a decade, because you just know that's what you have to do. Or maybe you are like Albert Einstein, so excited about his new thoughts and theories that he would barely remember to have lunch.

There will be people in your life who, because of their own unresolved issues, will try to persuade you this way or that way. Their voices will ring in your ears whenever you try to venture beyond the comfort zone--their comfort zone.

Their voices will say things like

You will never make enough money doing that.

You need to have a stable job before you can be an artist.

You need to follow in _______'s footsteps.

Don't let me down.

I could go on, but I'm sure you can fill in your own. You know exactly what I mean.

And perhaps most important of all--learn to love your body. Oh, lord, learn to love that beautiful female body of yours, in all its voluptuous goodness. Social media will tell you, on obvious but, more dangerously, on subconscious levels, that you have to focus on your physical appearance. That you have to watch what you eat, worry about what boys think about you, try on a million outfits, and basically collapse into the defeat of feeling that the female body is something you cannot trust. You will feel like you need to apologize on some level for your very existence, for the very act of taking up space. But this is not you. This is something that you inherited from a sick, confused culture.

Find women, and men, who do not think this way. They are out there. There are people who see beyond the physical--beyond the makeup, the diets, the thongs, the pressure to have sex when you don't want to. There are deep, thoughtful people like you who are ready to let this whole circus go. Even if you don't find them now, become one of them so that you can join that band of people later. They are waiting for you.

Take time to hug yourself, thank your legs, your ass, your breasts, your arms, everything that is physically you--be ridiculous about it. When you eat, feel the food nourishing all of those beautiful parts of your body. Every time you hear that voice in your head that tells you to be prettier, to have a bigger chest, to deprive yourself of food when you are hungry, to ______, remember that it is not you. You have once again been co-opted by the buzz of the world. And the fact is, the world right now is sadly, strangely shallow. The world has lost track of what matters.

And even deeper than that, the feeling that you are not enough--THAT is not your voice. That is a voice that has come down to us through many generations, that keeps us playing it small. You are enough. You have always been more than enough. But you cannot just tell that to yourself in the mirror, without letting the words really sink in. You have to learn to dive way deep in, and to really feel the enoughness that hides behind all of these lies. Take the time, every single day, to fill your cup with that kind of experience. You are loved on a level that is so far beyond what you think. Go to that place, beyond the ridiculous radio stations that have become your thoughts. And if you can't find it yet, just have some faith--I promise you that it is there. It often takes hitting some tough spots to find it, but you will. It is absolutely there.

The bottom line is, the only voice that matters is yours. And I'm not talking about the loud, buzzy, "part of the world" voice. The voice that is yours is way way deep down, and it takes work to find it. That is your job--to get to that quiet place and find out what your passion is.

Sometimes it can help to remember what you loved as a child--before all the self-consciousness and social BS started taking over. Did you love to draw? Write? Count? Tell stories? Boss people around fearlessly? What sort of ridiculous, imaginative, wild mess were you? Feel that child in you. That can help.

Then, you need to clear away all the noise that is in the way.

It is a scary journey, but this is, as far as you know, your only life. Each day is its own unique island, and then it is gone. This sum of days is your only chance to be fully you.

So, what do you want to do? Not out of pressure, or out of lack, but from deep within your heart, from full self-love and connection--who are you?

THAT is your work!

Love,

An Older, Wiser Version of You