Everything changed when I forgave myself.

I have crooked teeth. I was born with strange toes and sometimes my heart speeds up. I’m not good with people, always keeping to myself, and I have two brothers I don’t even know.

But I’m trying to smile even though my teeth don’t look like a toothpaste commercial. I’m walking bare feet thinking ’who decided how toes are supposed to look?’ and I’m trying not to wear oversized clothes just to hide my body. I still keep to myself a lot, but sometimes I try to show up and reach out, and sometimes that’s all it takes.

I’m trying to both honour myself and grow myself.

Everything changed when I learned to honour my body instead of fighting it. When I learned to take care of it, like a precious castle to protect this weary heart. To stop harming it, punishing it for looking like this or that, feeling like this or that. I don’t look like they all told me I had to do, but I’m healthy and strong and vital. That is enough.

Everything changed when I forgave myself.

I never got a record deal. I never found a manager who believed in what I did. I never got to tour in a tour bus, with a band, in front of big crowds, and I never got to do all those things I fought with all my life for, for so long.

But I started my own record label and built my own deal. I learned to manage myself and I even created my own concept for touring. With friends as a band. With my very own supporters as a crowd. I created my own path.

Everything changed when I switched from saying ‘I have to do this’ to ‘I GET to do this’. When I started viewing my music as a way to serve instead of building for own profit. When I tried to meet people with an open heart and a will to love them instead of guarding my own history of solitude and brokenness.

Dedication. Giving. Loving.
That is the goal.

Everything changed when I forgave myself for all the things I couldn’t be.

I’m not famous, successful, rich or popular. I don’t have a large group of friends, a big house or academic qualifications to get me a job: heck I never even had a job!

But I get to do me. Full out. Peacefully. With no one telling me to go there or do that, be this or sign here. I get to explore every corner of my own personality, on my own. Every passion, every talent, and follow wherever it might lead me.

I’m not everything I want to be, but I’m more than I was, and I’m still learning.

I’m happy. Just sitting here. Knowing I have a few friends. Knowing I have a dream to work on. Knowing I have somewhere to go if it starts raining. A pillow to rest my head on. Someone to call when I get lonely. Nature to walk in, pure air, early mornings, seasons and weather. This is enough. This is more than enough. And most of all, I am enough.

Everything changed when I forgave myself.

~♡ Charlotte Eriksson