Tuesday Morning Musings

Hold Your Head High

I used to walk with my head down, and sometimes still do when I forget.

It wasn’t just shyness — it was survival. I thought that if people saw me, really saw me, they’d glimpse the storm behind my eyes: the intrusive thoughts, the quiet self-loathing, the shame that curled around my ribs like a vice. They’d see the girl who struggled with an eating disorder, who was assaulted and turned blame inward, who used pain to feel in control, who mistook punishment for penance. They’d see the woman who endured domestic violence and learned to move softly, to take up as little space as possible — as if silence could make her safe.

For so long, I believed my struggles made me less.

Less deserving of tenderness, less worthy of being seen.

So I folded in on myself. I apologized with my posture. I kept my eyes on the ground, convinced that invisibility was protection.

But healing — real healing — is the slow act of learning that your scars do not make you unworthy; they make you real. It’s understanding that the parts of you you’ve hidden are not too much, but precisely the proof that you’ve survived.

It doesn’t happen all at once. Some days I still catch my reflection and see the ghost of the girl who flinched at her own shadow. Some mornings my head dips low before I remember who I’ve become. But then I breathe, lift my chin, and remind myself:

I have walked through things that tried to erase me.

I have been buried and still found the strength to bloom.

I have earned my space here.

So today, start with your head held high.

Walk into the world like someone who has overcome, because you have.

You are not less because of your challenges — you are more.

More compassionate, more aware, more radiant because you know the cost of light.

The world doesn’t need you smaller.

It needs the full truth of you — brave, imperfect, human, and healing.

What would it look like for you to hold your head high today — not because everything is perfect, but because you’ve survived enough to know you deserve to be seen?