To the dear echoes in my mind,

I understand how enraging it becomes from time to time to express yourself, to finally say what's on your mind, to bury your sadness and angst through my being. Because I know how infuriating it is to be confined in an endless labyrinth of what-ifs and curating the worst-case scenarios for every stance we go through. I know all you are trying to do is protect me from the potential perils of my existential stride, to shield me from the externality of how horrendous the world could be. I behold your concern, I see you as you are and I feel your pain, but I want to be honest with you and I am tired. I am tired of your constant whispers of how bad the world is, how everything can turn against me or how I can become better because the present me is not good enough.

Because the truth is I am good enough, I am worth it, I am an amazing person, I am strong, loyal, creative, fierce and hardworking. I know my imperfections reach their head often, but I like myself, And that is not to say I am ashamed of you, of your opinions or partakes because, at the end of the day, you are a part of me. The essence of my shadow that constitutes me, not only the beauty but also you- the parts of me that I once wished to hide but now am radically accepting and compassionate with.

Because you also deserve the love that the light of me gets, I am not only the light of hope, I came to understand that it's crucial to take stock of your progress when you're feeling down and don't think you can go very far sometimes. I reveled in my success as an adult who would have shielded me as a child. I may not be where I would like to be, but I am also not where I was.

I accepted myself as I am and reaffirmed the idea that I should love myself for all of my characteristics, including my strength and beauty, my light and dark sides, my glory and gore, the parts of me that people love and value, and the parts of me that I would prefer to keep hidden. In actuality, regardless of where we are in life, we are all deserving of love, acceptance, encouragement, and self-esteem.

Finding the extraordinary beauty in the mundane and everyday aspects of life is ultimately more important than possessing extraordinary powers to transform the ordinary. I am also the darkness of my insecurities, the desolation of my loneliness and the animosity of all the ways I have erred. Why?

As I am humane, and in my true humaneness, the being of your darkness fosters the way for my light to authentically shine its truest mirth. I am grateful for you to exist, not because I hate my life or myself but now I have the power to accept myself just as the way I am. Not the perfect and bright Hridya, but also the one who falters from time to time, who cries and who sighs over the missed opportunity but continues to learn, to adapt, to accept, to love and to grow.

So to all the voices in my head, you can step into ease and calm, as I finally learned my lesson.

To wholeheartedly accept me who I am, the darkness and the light,

To let myself be free, to live without judgement and to love with all my might.

.    .    .