Who You Are Is Never Wrong

I was painfully shy as a kid. I decided early on it was easier for people to take care of me if I was quiet and out of the way.

I took on the identity of the good, shy girl. And I was rewarded for it.

“Anna’s so easy, you don’t even know she’s in the room.”

But I was in the room. I wanted to be seen and heard and acknowledged. I had so much to share and give, but it felt so unclear and unsafe for me to know how to express myself.

Silence expands awareness. I was hyper aware of everything.

I felt pain in the people I loved, so I internalized staying quiet, good, and small was the best and safest for them. I didn’t want to cause more pain. I didn’t trust myself. I made myself wrong.

It took identity death and personal healing and growth to overcome this. But when I did, I found myself craving to be heard. Making up for lost time, my voice became my salvation.

I don’t believe anyone is actually shy.

Introverted or quiet? Yes. But shy? No.

I think shyness is an internalized trauma response. I think shy people actually have the most to say.

There is wisdom in our quietness, but shyness is pathologizing the self.

How many times do we do this to ourselves? Pathologize or silence our truth. Make ourselves wrong.

How often do we fracture our own essence trying to meet standards that don’t belong to us?

How often have I made myself incapable of seeing my own goodness because I was trying to be something or someone else?

Who you are is not wrong. Who you are innately and naturally is exactly right.

Your innate essence—that is, who you were before the world made you believe you had to be anything or any way else—is good. It is beautiful and pure and worthy.

This essence is your wholeness and your holiness. It is your path and your liberation. It is your truth.

Flowers are teaching me this. They are teaching me how to bloom. How to overcome making myself wrong.

Just like flowers, it is my destiny to bloom into my own unique expression.

Just like flowers, I can root into the safety of the soil beneath me as I expand into my becoming.

Just like flowers, I can softly but bravely take up space.

Just like flowers, I can wage beauty with my blooming.

Flowers remind me that my existence is not only right but an integral part of all that is. I am not a fixed thing but a living, breathing creative process and all of it belongs here.

And what might happen if we sought shamelessness in all of our actions?

How might our lives shift if we sought respect and kindness for ourselves first and foremost as we moved through the world?

Just like flowers, your innate essence is beautiful. It is worthy and wise and integral in the piece of this larger creation called life.

You belong, so bloom.