To The Girls Who Don’t Think They’re Enough

To the girl who is enough to see her own strength, walk away, and let her life stray from the plans that ring loud in her head, facing the fear of the unknown, as you now feel you walk this world alone.

To the girl who cries out, full of self-loathing, misplacing the blame for everything that went wrong on herself.

To the girl who is bigger than the names he called you and the hatred he spewed towards you. You now rise out of the ashes of the box he placed you in, commanding respect, for you my dear, are worthy.

To the girl whose dreams were diminished by a man afraid of your ambition, know you are powerful. Your dreams are yours to bring to fruition. No dream is ever too small or too large to complete, and no one should ever tell you otherwise.

To the girl looking over her shoulder, peeling the controlling talons off your skin from a man whose voice still fills your head despite his absence, yelling at your for your “imperfections”… know you are perfect. Every fiber of your being has built you into the woman you have become. Every choice, whether right or wrong, brought you to where you are now, and you are beyond valuable and deserve all life has to offer.

Society will try and tell you that you were wrong for walking away, that you were selfish for leaving, that it wasn’t “that bad.” What they don’t see is the emotional scars that run deep, the carnage from the verbal assaults, the immeasurable doubt and pain planted by someone who was supposed to love you.

That person transformed from someone so loving and caring, into someone that was unrecognizable, who controlled you by belittling you, isolating you, and demolishing the ideas you held of yourself. Emerging from a toxic individual has taken its toll, but out of the ashes you rise, stronger than before, for you know your worth now. You are no one’s possession.

You know the true value of love and respect, because possibly for the first time in your life, you finally showed those things to yourself in leaving him.

For the first time, you placed your wants and needs higher than somebody else’s. You realized you were at risk of destruction by staying in that relationship. You chose to save yourself. You showed yourself love and respect as you made the hardest choice of all, breaking someone you loved wholly, but who was beyond the point of breaking you.

Every flaw is as beautiful as the woman it belongs to.

Society tells you that eventually you’ll find someone who accepts you for who you are, for the baggage you bring, and the life you’ve lived, which I hope for you is true. But I also hope that you fill yourself with this same amount of self-love. Be the woman who builds herself up and establishes their own self-worth that is so deeply rooted into your soul that no one can steal that from you. I want your roots to pierce out the injustices that have been done to you, and to stand as a shield against those who want to tear you down.

You are magnificent, you are strong, you are brilliant, and you are more than enough.