After living my entire adulthood contorting to fit into boxes that weren’t meant for me--it's true. I have gotten tired of feeling ashamed all the time.

It is wildly appropriate to say that I no longer feel ashamed. Not in body, soul, beliefs or movement through the world. Not for who, what, or how I am. I refuse to hold another apology for the ways && hows && whos.

I am not on this earth to be a living apology.

None of us are.

Yes. We fuck up. Every last one of us.

&& yes, there is grounding to be found in committing to the hard && devotion of working to make it right.

There is also wisdom in knowing that sometimes there isn't a right to be made.

Whatever it is that you have done.

&& Whatever weight you are carrying.

Whatever breach of your integrity you have lived through…

Here you are. Living in the guilt && inward-directed recrimination.

Stop telling stories about yourself where you are painted as the villain, every time.

So, you did a thing that you have deemed wrong, or the world has named wrong…

(or some powerful guys who compiled a book of parables thousands of years ago named wrong.)

How entirely human of you.

Own it all. I own it all.

Stand in the truth of it.

Make an apology you need to make to close your open wound.

Learn what you need to learn so that it does not happen again.

Heal what is calling for healing.

&& then lay it down.

There is nothing gained by carrying your own apology until it has buried you under its weight.

Sovereignty. That's what I call it.

Somehow, through all the twists && turns && fuckery of this life, I became a woman who is sovereign unto her self.

Does this mean I've beaten all my demons && that I don't give a fuck && that everything is peachy keen all the time?

Oh hell no. Not even close.

I'm a woman who will forever be fighting with herself - pushing && growing && expanding && contracting. Learning && unlearning && tripping over the same lessons 50 times or more on the way to integration. It gets messy in this brain && heart && body of mine. That's just how I'm made.

But the fact remains that there is not a person, relationship, religion, or belief that holds me to any agreement that negates my contract with myself.

Fact - Shame will never serve nobody. Where there’s shame there is no pleasure. It’s your pleasure that the universe spirals toward. There comes a time in the evolution of a woman where she gets tired of asking for permission to live && breathe && be && love in the way that is most honest. When she stops looking outside of herself && she writes her own permission slips && doesn't ever look back.