I Did NOT Wake Up Like This: The Problem With Trying To Channel Our Inner Beyonce

It seems the trend lately (and rightly so) is for females to embrace their independence. There is a call to channel your “inner Beyonce” – if you will, as we navigate through the hills and valleys that are our 20s. I agree with this notion of self-confidence, and have always pitied the girls who define their self-worth around the companionship of someone else. If you can’t have a happy and honest relationship with yourself, you certainly have no business having one with someone else.

However, for those girls who are confident yet in a healthy relationship, I may have misjudged. As with most things, there is a thin line you straddle in matters of the heart. While focusing on yourself can be perceived as empowering, is it also a mechanism to avoid the pain that is associated with letting someone in? Looking back, I definitely took my “me-time” to come into my own, but I also used it as an excuse to be selfish because I was afraid of getting hurt. Upon the path of self discovery I think we tend to protect our newly embraced individuality. It is like a huge “Jenga” puzzle that we are afraid is going to topple if we let someone close enough to pull away a piece.

I now realize that the biggest risk to take in promoting personal development is gaining that self-righteousness and independence, and in turn, having the strength to give some of it away (to the right person). Now before the feminists of the world scroll to the bottom and start the hate comments, hear me out.

You may be this beautiful, wonderful, complicated, brilliant person – as I believe most people are. However, if you maintain that tough exterior how will you really experience all the love and joy that the world has to offer?

I think of it as a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. We need to go into our cocoon to transform into who we are meant to become, and that takes some alone time and self reflection. Although it may be tempting to stay in the safety and confinement that the cocoon has to offer, you can’t stay in there forever. If you stay, the world will never get to see your true beauty, and you will never get to see the true beauty of the world.

Find someone who embraces the “you” that you’ve worked so hard to become. Be with someone who never forces you to compromise your individuality, and never force them to compromise theirs. Then let them take a piece of you. Give into becoming a member of a team that is much more powerful than you could ever be on your own. “Giving in” was one of the most difficult and most rewarding decisions I have made. I don’t want to say that I depend on my other half now, but I want him there. He makes me better. I want to share our individual and mutual successes and strife together- not alone. It is a nice feeling to know that you CAN make it alone in this world, but maybe you don’t have to. I think even Queen Bey would back me on that one.