Don’t get her wrong; she is still “nice”, but just not without boundaries like she used to be. She opened up with us to chat, and we were very grateful for her time. Her message to womxn is important as ever to share in such a quickly shifting and changing time—and all for the better. She discusses the importance for treating yourself as a priority, and not expending precious energy that can lead to burnout later on.

“A few years ago, I used to believe that literally everyone was my friend. I believed that because I wanted it to be true. It didn’t help growing up being teased through most of my adolescents for my garage sale clothes, bad haircuts, lack of athleticism, and in between—set me up to have the foundation of being a people pleaser early on. Looking for acceptance from kids and adults alike. Building off of that, my upbringing was a mix of religions—mostly Christianity—so I would pray and not confront, or stay quiet and not make a huge scene… And was generally met with ‘don’t be so emotional’, that sort of thing etcetera.

For years, I kept these thoughts at my core. So long in fact, it all piled up so high, and what goes up, must come down right? Eventually enough incidents led to me crying from anger, which later turned into depression. For the longest time, my thoughts would continually say, maybe if you just keep being nice and letting people in close, everything will be okay. People mean well, and people make mistakes. What’s so beautiful now is I do believe this to be true again, because now I have boundaries, and energy to recharge.

In my fantasy world (not too long ago), everything was pink and red—rose-colored shades if you will. I couldn’t see past them to see the flags waving in front of me were red. So what gives? What makes you finally take those off you may ask? Sometimes you have them pulled off by someone. By someones. By someone(s) enough times to where you finally can’t put them back on (if you are/were like me).  They finally break, leading you to realize, nothing was ever rose-colored at all.

Real life is full of color though… tons of it. It’s saturated and beautiful in the real world too. But where rainbows starts with the sunshine, they can end in the clouds and shadows too. It’s all about balance and where you stay on that spectrum, and where your closest circle is around it too.

So just be you. Be that loud-messy-laughing-colorful-expressive-and-all-things-lovely-and-opinionated-everything-above-below-and-in-between-beautiful you. And don’t smile if you don’t want to.”

Feeling inspired? I know we are! Find Kat Alyst on all social media when you search @katinthecloudz or visit her website and shoot her a message here.

Photo by Edgar Patino. Courtesy of the Artist.

Article published in the verbal words of Kat Alyst. Exclusive for Bēhance.com.