The most destructive thing I’ve ever done was believe someone else’s opinion of me. To allow someone else’s perspective, story, and limitations impose on the way I wanted to live. To let someone else’s vision become more important than my own. To offer up my freedom or peace of mind in exchange for approval.

One of the most radical ways to change your life is to stop looking to other people for the validation that you seek. You actually have to be your own mother, your own father, your own best friend, your own lover. Because the wounds you’re carrying from childhood, and the holes you want to fill, can only be filled by YOU.

Believe me, this is one of the hardest lessons to learn: that you truly do contain everything you seek.

Everyone else will come and go, even if it truly is ’til death do you part. But you still have to wake up with yourself every single morning, and go to bed with yourself every single night. So stop replaying other peoples’ opinions as if they are gospel.

The only opinion that matters is your own, and the only thing that really counts is how you feel when you look yourself in the eye. Have you been your best self today? Were you kind, patient, creative? Did you think about other people, not just yourself? These are questions only you can answer.

Shaking off what everyone else wants for you is a unique liberation, a personal revolution, a freedom that instantly clears the path and makes your next move obvious. Fuck what they say. What do you want?

The alchemy of radical self love occurs when you create your own myth, fill yourself with messages of acceptance, and surround yourself with people, ideas, and images that inspire you to be your biggest, baddest, boldest self.

Dream so big it embarrasses you. Spend time around people who act like the vice-president of your fan club.¹ And keep striving to make every single day better than the last.

Love,

[1] You’re the president of your fan club, obviously.

P.S. The idea for this post originally came from the brilliant @hausofhoodoo.