Always looking for inspiration and motivation, I stumbled upon the website and Facebook home for Brave Girls Club. Every day, the offer a later of truth to their readers called, a little bird told me. In today’s entry was about kindness toward yourself:

What if the kindest thing you could ever do for yourself is to simply let yourself be happy, to let yourself enjoy your life, to let yourself be who you are, to let yourself be?

Instead of beating yourself up over every decision, every flaw, every mistake, every little tiny picked-apart lack of perfection, what if you just let yourself be OK?

I am giving you permission to BE … and not just to BE … but to BE AWESOME, TO BE HAPPY, TO BE EXACTLY WHO YOU ARE.

That’s one loving, kick-ass definition of authenticity. And authenticity is something I crave to create in my own life. Here’s the thing about being exactly who you are, about being your most authentic self — it can be difficult We practice putting masks on all the time and when we let our real selves out into the world, there are some people who will react, well, badly. They will accuse you of changing, even though you feel more true to yourself than ever before. It will make you want to put your mask back on and act in those ways you learned many years ago, ways which once were helpful but no longer serve your best interests.

It takes some bravery to be yourself. You have to stop thinking and just be. You have to make the choice to be happy regardless of whatever crap life may throw at you that moment. You have to make the choice to see yourself as awesome as you are now. Your awesomeness is not dependent upon reaching some future state. Do not delay being your unique, awesome self until you lose weight or get married or fund your 401K or win a 5K. You are awesome. Right now.