September 16, 2019

I was about 18 years old & ALREADY for years I had grown this idea in my mind that I need to be “this girl” to be loved by men. I felt I needed to reveal my body in order to receive love & affection. I felt like that belief was justified when I saw that the hat read “show me your tits”. It’s like I have this switch in my mind that says “oh, if one guy thinks like this, they all do…” & I just began to lose my Self even more along the way. I began to associate self-worth with having to show more skin or to have sex with random guys because “that’s what all men want”. I was even raised being told that. “ALL guys want a sexy young girl & they will ALL cheat on you. The sooner you accept that, the less you’ll be hurt. There is no such thing as love & there is no such thing as a man who only wants to be with ONE woman”. Deep in my heart that just never resonated, but be told something for so long by numerous people & viola, a belief is formed… it will begin to show up in your reality consistently until you recognize that it doesn’t have to be true. I remember the reason I even started going to festivals was so that I could show my it’s & ass & then maybe somebody would love me. It was never about the music for me, unfortunately. Almost 7 years later & I am JUST starting to understand that it doesn’t have to be that way… that my self-worth doesn’t come from getting approval. It’s all within AND if that’s all a guy wants from me is my body, then it wasn’t meant to be in the first place. Sometimes, I am still convinced that those painful perceptions I have of men are true, but I am peeling away those layers bit by bit. I am beginning to slowly see that there ARE men out there that aren’t into sexualized girls & who are more than willing to be in a monogamous relationship. There are days that I still fall back into old patterns of thinking, however I know that change has to start within. If I want to see faithful & modest men, I have to myself become a faithful, modest woman. “BE the change you want to SEE.”