This Is Me

by Chrissy Metz

What I’ve learned from the show is that there are so many ways we can connect if we are willing to be vulnerable. Sharing the things that we’re afraid will make us appear less in others’ eyes makes us stronger. Because confidence is really trust in yourself, right? It has nothing to do with what someone else thinks of you; it’s what you think of you.

“It is, isn’t it?” She said it calmly and without apology. She’d worked her butt off to live in a home she loves. She earned it and she deserves it, and she would do a disservice to herself and the beauty she surrounds herself with if she shrugged it off and deflected the compliment. I’d been in Oprah’s presence, what, two seconds? And already I had a life lesson—that it’s okay for you to say, “I worked hard for what I have. I earned it and I am going to enjoy it, proudly.” It only affirmed what I was learning: There is something that happens when you are grateful. You continue to receive blessings.

The issue is that when you are not used to having money, your normal is scarcity. You start looking for ways to share your good fortune because you feel so guilty.

“We all have a purpose,” she said. “Some people are the tall oak trees, and some people are the beautiful bushes. But everyone has a purpose. There is nobody here on earth who doesn’t have a path or a purpose. An innate destiny. Every human being who comes, comes called.”

I know I am still unlearning everything I was taught as a kid. When I was down, people told me that was where I would stay. But when you are so far down, the only way to go is up.

I didn’t see my own accomplishment; I saw my father’s reaction to my accomplishment.

It started up later when it dried out, but I still felt like I had made my mother’s life hard. I had made a point to stop asking her for anything, and look what happened when I did. Look what was happening because I was a burden who simply existed. Everything was my fault. All of it.

maybe it’s not about you. (I know. Preposterous, right?)

Repeat After Me: “Please, God, Let Me Come From a Place of Love.”

This fear of trying extends to overtures of affection. I don’t just mean sex; I mean looking someone in the eye and saying why you are in it to win it with that person. Why you want to share this life with the person. Our ego gets in the way and tells us that we’ll look cheesy at best and at worst, the affection will not be returned. No one wants to experience the emotional version of being left hanging in a high-five. But trust me, if you put yourself out there, chances are, your feelings will be reciprocated, or at least received with kindness.

That’s the only thing you can do because the more you resist, the more the fear persists. Whatever you’re feeling, lean in and use it.