I find that as human beings we struggle with believing in our ability to be the person that we picture ourselves as in our minds. We all have that vision of who we should be, but majority of the population by the time they reach adulthood have already given up on their vision.

Personally I don’t blame them as I was one of them. Life and its challenges tend to rip away the dream, the passion we are all born with to be the best that we can be. I cannot speak for everyone, I can only speak on what I know for sure through my own experience.

As a child I was a confident little girl, ballerina, great grades, well mannered. the spotlight didn’t worry me too much. I was being raised by a pessimist though, someone who avoided the spotlight, my mother the queen that she is to this day avoids any unnecessary attention. As much as I always blamed this incredibly strong woman for everything that went wrong in my life, she was not to blame. Life was to blame.

My innocence ripped from me, my family security ripped from me through divorce, my confidence ripped from me through peer pressure and bullies, my identity questioned through racial war and of course a broken heart. These are the things that dimmed the light that once shone brightly in my eyes to a point of almost going completely out.

It took years to figure this out, a lifetime for some. but finally I realized that none of these things defined who I was or who I am today. that nothing from my past can determine who I am now. Yes it will help to shape me an mold me. But I decide who I am. That vision of light and love that once was can be brightened again. I am a child of light and love and I finally see that I do not need to live in this day to day existence that the human race has called life. Working all day to receive an income that pretty much gets finished the day we receive it. Paying bills that will never end. The cycle is so vicious but most will never see the way out, they find themselves stuck in an existence that I describe as emotional torture. It puts the light inside of us out, and why? because we don’t believe that we can do better or be better. We don’t believe in the vision we see for ourselves. We let the world tell us that we are not good enough and we allow it to consume our souls.

I finally see how my life has been stolen from me by the world. I believed that I wasn’t good enough because the world around me told me I wasn’t. I fell into the trap set for me by this cruel world I found myself in. But now I am free. my mind has been free’d my soul has seen its light once again and I choose to follow the vision in my mind, the one I have for myself the one I have always had for myself.

I have taken a leap of faith in leaving the ways of this prison I found myself in called life, this job that barely keeps me afloat and I will soar to new heights, find new places and try new things. I have taken the first step, and now I will learn to walk my own path of life. Yes I will stumble and I may even fall a few times, but that’s how I learned to walk before and I know that in no time with practice and determination I will soon be running and jumping too!

Written by Tammy Murphy