I’ve been having so many conversations with clients and friends (and myself) where they feel a fire in them because of the way things are — things that don’t feel “right” — and feel the fear of saying/doing anything.

But in the meantime, this conversation wanted to come out.

If you’re feeling fiery but also fear and it makes you question, this is for you.

Feel free to share with anyone who needs to hear it and/or send me a message.

To quote Katniss Everdeen, “Fire is catching. And if we burn, you burn with us!”

#villainess

So, uh, i’d love to write you sometime…

My body is shaking with rage.

You don’t see what I’m trying to do.

You wouldn’t.

You don’t want to.

You say, “They’ll see your body as sexual” and ask, “Why do you feel the need to post that picture?”

I open and close my mouth several times, struggling with outrage, to possibly convey how the very reason you have an issue with it is the very reason I do it.

You ask, “Am I prepared to accept the risk; being ostracized by society, judged, and rejected?

And my answer, instantly and without a doubt, is yes.

With every cell in my “too-exposed” body.

Because the opposite; the risk of conforming, the risk of staying small, the risk of staying covered, the risk of staying silent is greater than any risk of rejection.

And sitting idly by is one risk I can’t take any longer — for I’ve paid the price of keeping truth buried in my body.

With what seems like the best of intentions you are doing the very thing you’re afraid society will do to me.

You trying to protect me from speaking about what shall remain unspoken in this society means you’re more interested in protecting yourself and this society than what is right.

I too am scared of the unknown. And I know it threatens the way you’ve, I’ve, we’ve lived for so long, but I’m more scared of staying with what I know to be wrong than taking the risk for what is right.

You pose the question, “Would my grandmother be proud of the pictures I posted?”

And I don’t know. A part of me would hope so. She didn’t have the chance and this is what she fought and worked so hard for; a better world for her daughters and daughter’s daughters.

But if not, I know my grandchildren will be.

You feel judged and say, “Do you want me to change?”

And I say, infuriated, yes. It’s simple; if you don’t, you’re complacent.

And the injustice you’re accepting with silence, inaction, and ignorance is unacceptable.

All the while you’ve asked me to change and conform and contort myself to fit in the small, simple box my entire life, so much so that I didn’t know who I was. And the instant I see the box for what it is and want to break it down, break free, you can’t help but feel uncomfortable by my liberated power and want to put me back into my clothes, my box, my straitjacket so you feel better.

“Society is a certain way,” you argue. “They won’t accept you.”

“Good,” I acknowledge. “I’m changing society.”

“Good luck,” you scoff.

And I can’t help but retort, “With people like you, I’ll need it.”

I will accept your fear of the world as you know it changing.

I will accept my pain of a world that feels wrong.

But what I will not accept is the world as it is.

I realize that the world as it is may not accept me back.

But the world is changing, whether anyone likes it or not.

And it is the world of tomorrow; a world that is more right, that I am living for now.