Before this work
found me.
Before this work found me — before I was teaching anyone anything — I was the person everyone needed me to be.
I was a high-performing version of someone trying to earn the love that should have always been there.
I was a girl who held tight to a single conviction.
If I were smarter.
If I were more athletic.
More popular.
Prettier.
— my father would come back. And I would finally have the permission I was waiting for to live.
That conviction never came true. But I held it for years. Through middle school. Through college. Into early adulthood.
I became — without knowing I was becoming — exhausted.
Resentful. Guilty. Unworthy. And quietly furious at a life I had spent so much energy performing.
Until the work found me.
And my story really began the moment I realized my worth was not dictated by anyone else.
Not by my father.
Not by the people I'd been pleasing.
Not by the standards I'd been performing for.
My worth was never theirs to set.
Now I get the honor of walking other people
across the same bridge —
from the stuck self to the becoming self.