DARE TO BE YOU

Ah, this is my favorite subject to talk about, if I'm being completely honest. Simply because this is something that I was confident that I had down-pat during my middle school and high school days, when in reality I only knew about a quarter of myself. I also think it's something that we all really struggle with from time to time, whether we actually admit it or not. For me personally, all I originally knew about myself was that I was stubborn, hard-working, and I loved my God, my family and friends, and volleyball more than anything. I knew I had other interests and things I liked, too, but to me, my identity and my self resided in those four things that I specified earlier. Then, I got to college and everything changed. I was farther from my home church, my family and my friends from home, and volleyball literally took up my whole life. Then, even though I found new friends at my college and found success on the court and found time to visit my family, I had to transfer away to another university because my time at my junior college was done. I had to make my new university a home, and my new schedule left less time for me to go home and visit my family... and even though I had the court to turn to, I experienced two different injuries during both of my last two volleyball seasons that took away playing time and caused me to struggle in my life outside of the sport.

This forced me to really think about who I truly am outside of what I'll call my "Core Four" things that I mentioned earlier. And then, when I was no longer an athlete, I really had to face the fact that I couldn't use volleyball/being a collegiate volleyball player as personality trait anymore. So, soul-searching became a big part of my journey here in the past half year, and guys, what an AMAZING JOURNEY it has been!

Yes, I feel like I've always had a pretty good sense of who I am and what I stand for, and I hope those who have met me in person would agree... but I didn't know my FULL self, and I didn't realize how important that is until volleyball ended. I was able to start reading and writing again. I got back into running distance and swimming. I dove deep into the Bible and really dug into my faith and got closer to God than I have ever been before. I found an inner peace and whole new sense of "self" that I've never had... and I think the most important thing I learned is how to FULLY EMBRACE who I am.

I am who I am, and no one can be a better me than me.

I have my own combination of talents, gifts, and abilities and specific little quirks that God decided would be mine and mine alone... and that is so beyond beautiful to me. He took the time to make me, ME. Why shouldn't I be proud of that? And what kills me is that so many people - including myself - have disliked the person that we see in the mirror at some point or another. We compare our lives to what we see on our friend's social media pages and wonder why we aren't in the same spot, like this life is a competition. But guys, news flash... this life is NOT a race. At the end of the day, we're all going to end up in the same place. Our lives all end the same way. But I will tell you this... a dog does not spend its days wondering why its not a cat. A lion does not spend all its time trying to be a hyena. Do you see the pattern here? These animals don't have time to worry about being something else because they're too busy trying to live and be the best version of themselves that they can be... because otherwise they don't survive. To restate that in a different way, THEY CANNOT SURVIVE IF THEY TRY TO BE SOMETHING THAT THEY ARE NOT. What if we took being our true selves as seriously as that? YOUR gifts are what make you unique. If you suppress who you really are, you could be metaphorically killing the next great artist, doctor, writer, or teacher/mentor. Don't worry about who people expect you to be or want you to be and just DARE TO BE YOU. Because that is honestly one of the bravest things you can do - be your true, genuine, authentic self. So I challenge you to do some soul-searching and embrace your truest self. Once you do that, don't let anyone tell you that that person isn't worthy of being loved or appreciated, because your true self is the best person you can be, and the right people will see that. I PROMISE.

As always, I love y'all with my whole heart, and my DMs on Twitter and Instagram are always open for prayer requests or whatever you want to talk about really! Stay safe, stay healthy, and DARE TO BE YOU!