Crayola Ain’t Got Nothing on You

What if you found out today that red is really blue, and blue is really red, and for your whole life you believed that red is blue and blue is red…like, this was not a debate, or a “what if” or a “maybe,” it was fact, there were no questions or pondering journal entries on the matter, red was just red and blue was just blue. But now it’s not.  And even crazier yet, what if blue was your favorite color?  Now what?!?  Is red your favorite color now, bc it’s actually blue…..yeah this could get confusing real quick.  

Well what if I told you the same is true about strength.  What if your whole life you have been told that to be strong means that you don’t cry, that you fight back, that you stick out a marriage because that’s what strong people do, that you don’t talk about your feelings or your hurt or your pain, because that would expose your weakness, that you put other peoples’ needs before your own, that you hide away your addictions and bad habits because they are all indications of being broken, of being weak.  

But what if I told you today, that you have been lied to, your whole life, you have been fooled into thinking that red is really blue.  And it’s simply not true.  None of it, because actually, when I see red and blue, I see purple.  And that purple can come in a multitude of shades.  And it’s the same with strength.  It looks different for everyone.  

Some people’s strength lies in finding the courage to speak about the way that they feel, for others it means, shutting up long enough to hear how other people feel, for some it lies in seeing their own addictions, for others it means, not allowing others’ addictions to be their own, for some it means letting go, for others it means holding on.  

Strength lies within each one of us in its own unique shade of purple.  And if you don’t feel it today, if you don’t know whether it’s lilac or plum or magenta or boysenberry or eggplant or lavender, or some other fabulous name from the Crayola repertoire, I promise you, it’s there, it just may be disguised as blue or red in this moment.  But YOU WILL FIND IT.  You will find your purple, and when you do, you will color the world with it.  

But more importantly, you will color yourself with it and you will know the true definition of strength:  BECAUSE IT IS WHO YOU ALREADY ARE.

You are Beautiful, You are Whole, You are Enough. - Andrea Dawn