Unapologetically Ourselves

Years ago, I attended an open drawing studio. 

I brought my sketch pad, some pencils and a kneaded eraser. I am oddly, approachable, or moreso than I'm usually comfortable with. I was more concerned this time about the comfort of the middleaged woman sitting in a white robe waiting for time to start drawing. I'm not good at chit-chat, but I seem to be able to leave my insecurity aside when I believe someone needs me to be more. I asked how long she'd modelled, and she happily engaged answering that and where she'd worked and soon it was announced drawing would begin with some short sketches. 

  The room was about 12x12 foot holding maybe ten people around a 4x6 foot platform, so there isn't much room to move to get a better perspective. I learned to work with whatever I had, and drew the backs of chairs or the bottoms of feet more than once. 
  The model did a very unexpected thing. Upon hearing we'd start, she turned toward me smiled, dropped her robe and lifted her joyous face and arms into the air. I scored a few mediocre sketches that night, but far beyond nudity, I won the right to shine, because she believed it was o.k. for her to do the same.

Don't be less than you. You cannot make yourself small enough that no one will ever envy you or try to cut you down to make themselves feel better in the absence of taking any action to believe in themselves. That job is theirs, and you can't save them their work. Yours job is to live. 
Don't be less of you.

Don't be less beautiful, intelligent, sexy or hard-earned strong. 
Don't be less funny, less caring or less loving. 
Don't be less playful, helpful, silly or ingenuitive. 
Don't be less talkative or less contemplative or less of a listener. 
Don't hold back when you dance, heal others, soap-box or make love.
Don't downplay  you in order to fit in or please anyone.
Don't restrict your paintings, your unborn novels, your discoveries, and the time you spend gazing at the surface of water or blowing bubbles. 
Don't downplay the work you've done, or how much blood you've spilled for something that looks like mere talent now.
Don't be less of you, neither cover nor dim your shine. Someone needs your light, and it may be that someone is ...you.


It's o.k. to try being true to yourself, and fall flat on your face.
It's o.k. to be scared.
It's o.k. to feel like you're not enough and to take up space on the planet anyway.
 It's o.k. to glow, then hide, and it's o.k. burst with light.

 Live your fullness, your ideas, your dreams. Be as glorious as you are, because there's also someone watching who may be even more afraid. Someone watches who may not know their own worth. Step into your sacred opportunity to be as amazing as you are for you, but also do it because someone needs to see you being happy in order to believe it's o.k. for them to be happy too.

tinajonesart