It’s because she's a visionary.

She lives and breathes possibility. She speaks life into the lifeless. She leads. She inspires. She knows her power intimately. It's why she's so successful.

This woman sees the big picture. She's built for the future. She's wired to see a vacancy and fill it with her magic sauce. 

She is always creating things that have never existed before. Businesses. Teams. Community.

She’s always bringing beauty, love and warmth to cold places. This is who she is at her best. She's the most powerful energy in every room so she's used to compensating for everyone.

What other choice does she have? Fly to space?

It’s because she sees everything in life as potential, that it’s hard for her not to apply that lens to the people she encounters in dating. Her endless curiosity knows there's always more to the story so she keeps on reading. It’s what makes her so magnetic.

If you are this woman I see you. I don't want you to change a damn thing. Keep being the visionary that you are. Keep seeing potential. Don't ever stop.

Just remember that a visionary requires a builder. Every great vision demands someone who can get their hands and heart dirty. It demands talent. Specific skills. Action. Doing. Doing. Doing. Not words.

As a visionary you know that no vision comes to life without consistency and communication. Real time doing. Real time investment. Real time tangible feedback that it's working and taking shape.    

You always require real time results in order to keep going. Now just apply that to dating.

Keep it simple babe.

A visionary needs a builder. 

A builder builds in real time. 

If he isn’t building, he’s not worth your attention.

If he isn't building, he isn't it.

He is the kind of potential that stays potential.

You want potential that becomes the vision.

Look tor the builder, not the talker, and you'll be just fine.

julie harper I AM HER    

You were everything you could have been.

You did everything you could have done.

You did everything you could have possibly done as who you were in that moment(s) of your life.  Nothing more.  Absolutely nothing more.

You did everything you could have done with the nervous system that you had.  Your awareness. Your unawareness.  Your life view.  Your life not yet lived.  The love you were shown.  The love that was withheld.  The edges you hadn't walked yet. The betrayals you hadn’t swallowed yet. The fires that hadn't burned anything to the ground yet.   

Every ounce of your conditioning counted.  Every lie the world ever sold you about yourself, counted. Every chain that held every woman in your lineage, held you too. Every survival reflex. Every fear.  Every suffocating belief that you clung to, decided. You made the moment with them.

We make all of our moments with them…

And it had to be this way.  I know….it’s maddening. But there is no shortcut to meeting the woman you were becoming while you thought everything was just going to shit.  There isn't a quick way to build a vessel strong enough to carry out a mission like yours.

The eternal you knew the whole time.  She still knows.  That whatever it was, only ripped to shreds the parts that weren't true.  You remained. 

You've been putting yourself back together the way that you wanted. Is it messy? Yep. Is it the hardest thing ever? Yep. But you’ve become the kind of woman who comes back swinging for the stars✨

So even those memories that still ache decades later…the ones that make you feel really sad and stuck sometimes…they were all part of your becoming.

They were the sucky gift that you got as a kid on Christmas.  The one that you cherish years later because your grandma gave it to you and she's gone. World ending at the time, but beautiful now.  Mostly.

You knew even then, that you were never obligated to stay in your original place. So you didn’t. 

You were brave enough to be reborn, but you tell everyone you settled.  You were strong enough to let it all burn to the ground, but you tell everyone you settled. You walked through every rite of passage that God through your way like a warrior, but you tell everyone you settled.

And I say you didn't. You didn’t settle at all. I say you lived. You are living the human experience better than anyone could ask of you.  You’ve gone through hell many times here in order to get to your particular heaven…because all the best ones do.

julie harper I AM HER

She survived all the minutes before you. She survived every dark hour, day, month and year before you appeared in the frame. And even more impressive than that, she learned to turn surviving into some sweet kind of loving and thriving.

So if you want her you better bring it.

You better bring what she hasn’t already learned to provide for herself. Do for herself. Create for herself. Become for herself. She doesn’t need you to save her, fix her, perfect her or lead her. She's done all that. Better than anyone expected. Even her.

She’s battled her way through every rite of passage that the Universe has asked her to. She’s walked away from every cushy comfort. She's had the guts to leave everything she wasn't supposed to. She's traded security with strings for her own integrity.

She’s carried every heavy load a thousand miles up the mountain. Alone. The physically heavy, the emotionally unbearable and the spiritually decimating. She’s died a thousand times and resurrected her own self back to life. Back to a new unknown. A new everything. More times than is humanly possible.

So she doesn’t need you. She’s not even sure that she wants you. So what can you possibly offer her?

"You’re so pretty?” A beige house in the suburbs Taking out the trash? A trip to Florida? Red roses, a card once a year and other boring things?

No. I can tell you right now that’s not it. It’s deeper than that. It’s always been deeper than that.

Because the only thing she can’t give herself is you. Your heart. Your soul. Your protection. Your way of seeing life and reflecting it back to her in ways that are most sacred to you. Your way of seeing her, loving her and experiencing her. Your way of seeing, loving and experiencing yourself. Your way of receiving the love she’s stored up for someone as equally invested in aliveness.

And rest…giving her room to rest. I'm not talking about a nap and a day at the spa. I'm talking about real rest. Rest from a world that has been relentless.

Yeah that.

And you’re going to have to give all of you or none of you. Mind + Body + Soul. Because she only knows ALL now. She only craves what overflows. She’s not interested in scarcity. She’s not interested in things that dry up. She’s not interested in things that start out hot and go up in flames. She’s not interested in your ego. She’s not interested in what it looks like to everyone else.

She’s only interested in what it feels like to her. And it has to feel the holiest.

This woman survived. Not to just exist. To love and be loved for real. She can only connect to the deep now. To wholeness. To the naked truth of herself and of you.

So you can’t compete your way to her. There is no game playing, bullshitting or buying your way into her heart…or her bed…or any other part of her. She isn’t needy. She's sustained. So you don’t get to be the old way and be with her. You don’t get to be passive and fragile and lost. You're not allowed to be reckless.

She’s already unimpressed. She’s already been wrecked and reborn and you weren’t there.

So not a man in earth is going to get away with only bringing half of an unhealed self to her table. You’re either in or you’re as far away as away can reach. You’re either doing the work or you can go find less. Less is everywhere. Like at the bottom of the mountain that she conquered a lifetime ago.

And she’s either too much for you…or she’s everything you ever wanted.

julie harper I AM HER

Every family tree is fighting change and begging for it at the same time. The push of consciousness and the pull of ‘the way it used to be’ leaves stretch marks on every surface. But somewhere in the chaos of it all, one woman always emerges…

One woman who doesn’t know the full extent of her courage yet. And the freedom she fights for, the standards she sets for herself without permission, the healing she refuses to quit on, the values she protects with her life, the systems she rejects and the power she unearths along the way…will become the legacy everyone after her inherits.

One woman. That's all it takes.

That is the woman I write for. That is the woman I fight for and build for and live for. She is the reason I don’t give up when I want to every other day.

Chances are, if you’re still reading this YOU are Her. The wildcard. The black sheep. The rebel. The pioneer. The goddess. The canary in the coal mine. The one who ends up in history books.

You are not here to fit in. You couldn’t even if you tried. So stop trying. You are not here to follow a script and be good. Or mild. Or easy. Or normal. Or pretty.

You are here to change everything.

For you and everyone who comes after you. So when you get weary, which you will at times, remember the assignment. Know that you are built for this exact moment. You do not need to change yourself. You just need to be yourself. The most you you’ve ever been.

julie harper I AM HER

www.julieharper.co

Being next to the confident guy gives you a taste of the confidence you lost.  And it tastes pretty damn good until he takes it with him.

Attaching yourself to someone successful lets you present the image of success without ever having to wrestle your own gifts into the world + be rewarded for those gifts.

You tell yourself that the ‘security’ of his success is enough to leave yourself behind.  You almost convince yourself that being his shiny trophy is everything you've ever wanted.  But you know, not that deep down, it's not.

Your desire to hang around his power is just God turning you on to your own unclaimed power.

Walking into a room with the one who lights it up and owns it, is just your reminder sweets -> that you don’t get to experience your own magic without risking yourself in the spotlight too.  That you're not in fact destined to be a supporting character in the exciting life of someone else.

You have your own exciting adventure begging you from beyond where you're standing right now.

I’m not saying confident and successful aren't attractive. I’m saying remember who the Fuck YOU are please.

Trust that when you are standing sure in the center of your own life these desirable qualities shift from clingy needs to an unapologetic want.  From taking something from them to embodying it instead.  From something hierarchical and destabilizing, to grounding and beautiful and balanced. Something all the way true for once.

I’m sorry not sorry to tell you that the qualities you admire most, the ones in your top 5, can never be sexually transmitted.  You have to get them for yourself.  You have to believe in your own untapped genius and make your move without proof.  Move without explaining yourself like a guilty teenager.  You have to trust that you have power and run to it like your life depends on it because it does.

Return to yourself.

RUN.

TO.

HER.

Because if you don’t, you’ll spend the rest of your life looking for other people to give you what you already are.  And what you already are is just waiting on you to remember Her.

julie harper I AM HER

It means fear is still winning. It means you’re still listening to people whose lives you don’t want.

And sometimes our backup plan is something we say to keep people comfortable, so they interrogate us less about our unconventional life choices. Sometimes underneath, our self-belief is secretly still building…

The funny thing is, we think our backup plan will save us if what we really want doesn’t work out. But it won’t. Nothing can save us from that.

Nothing can save us from failing to live out the reason we’re living in the first place. Nothing on Earth can replace wanting what we’ve always wanted and loving what we’ve always loved. There’s no filler for that.

Unbridled bliss doesn’t come from almost. It comes from says yes. It comes from however long it takes. However stupid I look. However much I sink.

Because I will always rise truer…I will always be that much closer to…me.

And by the way, your plans B, C and Z aren’t guaranteed. They’re not ‘safe’ like you think they are. They’re more likely to go up in flames because it’s impossible to manufacture the level of desire needed to keep them going.

So you should probably just decide right? Like…put your whole self into the actual thing until you get there? Because you have one life and…yeah, that.

julie harper I AM HER

Every. Single. Day.

Every morning the same vine creates new life and every night that life dies. I think that’s us when we’re doing it ‘right.’ That’s the way our story is written well.

Waking up and blooming and risking and dying...and then waking up again…and not bracing so hard for the dying part.

The thing that I love most about the morning glory is that when she wakes up she only knows how to bloom. That’s it.

She isn’t crippled by what happened before the moment she’s standing in. She’s not retracing her years. She’s not overanalyzing her misses. She’s not waiting for the other shoe to drop. She isn’t obsessively planning her way out of now.

She just blooms. Like b*tch here I am. Powerful. Beautiful. More sure than she was yesterday.

And she never waits for someone to tell her she can. She blooms. She blooms even before she sees the light because she has faith that the light will meet her. Because it always has.

I want us to live like that.

I want to wake up every morning only knowing how to bloom. I want to live brave enough to die. Live free enough to risk my image, my reputation and whatever pride is still hanging on…while holding myself more tenderly than ever.

I want to put it all on the line and mean it. I want to quit trying to preserve myself. I want to not fear my own depletion because I finally quit forgetting that I am infinite and remember that my depletion is only ever temporary. As temporary as I decide it gets to be.

I am renewable. In every way. So are you. What we need will never run dry.

I want us to go to bed every night knowing that who we were today served her purpose, and now she’s gone - and it’s ok because tomorrow she will be born again. New.

Tomorrow she will bloom.

So risk today. Spend all of your chances because you will get all new ones in the morning. There’s nothing to conserve. Nothing to wait for. Give it all away.

More will come.

Write your story miss morning glory.

All the best ones do;)

i am her

The cold hard important truth that I'm still learning...

not everyone evolves.

Not everyone wants to. Not everyone cares to. Not everyone has the guts to. Not everyone has the strength to. Not everyone has the capacity to.

Not everyone shows up here following a natural progression toward something greater. Some people devolve. Some people stay stuck. Some people just suck in general. Some sit back and drain energy rather than offer it. Some create chaos and harm for the rest of us.

Some people did not come here to evolve and truthfully, I have less time and room for those people.

But those ones came here to remind us what happens if we don't. They are here to remind us to keep going. To keep outgrowing our skin. They are here to tell us to be discerning with our big beautiful heart and to not take any shit.

julie harper I AM HER

I’m in the middle of nowhere at a cave with my teenage son and his Boy Scout troop and it’s suddenly making sense why no other parents were begging to go.

As I write this, it is exactly 12 degrees and sunny and my puffy winter coat sleeve keeps getting stuck in the leftover syrup on the table from breakfast.

I’d never been in a cave until now and I can’t stop thinking about the Brené Brown saying, “own the fear, find the cave.” Own the fear. Find the cave. Fine Brené. Fine. I will.

My fears are plenty in this moment. Historically (and presently) I don’t like bats or snakes or dark places without an exit. I don’t like being cold and wet and without access to a hot shower. I prefer The Four Seasons, the best champagne and a warm bed.

Joseph Campbell said, “the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” I’m finding this to be true. I’m finding that right beyond my fear is exactly what I am seeking – a treasure that I didn’t know I needed right now.

I am learning that I can enter the cave. I know that sounds basic but when there’s only one janky entrance and the ONLY instructions are, “please don’t touch the bats or kill them or you will go to prison for a year and if they bite you they typically won’t pierce your skin,” you second guess your entire life.

And then you text your family, “if I die here I do not want a funeral. I just want one of you to spread my ashes in some boujee ass place. Godspeed.”

I am learning that I can walk into the unknown with whatever’s on my back and it’s enough. I don’t need makeup, cell service or to know what’s going to happen next in order to embrace whatever does.

I can look over at the freedom spread thick all over my son’s face and join the adventure. It’s liberating.

I can be vulnerable to the elements and still choose to setup camp 60 feet underground. I can pull my weight. No one’s going to ask me to start a fire with my bare hands but I feel like I have the skills now if someone ever did. I am strong. I have the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual stamina.

As I move through this cave as slothily as it requires, it feels familiar. It dawns on me that over the last 15 years I have entered many caves. Many dark unknowns without an exit. I have moved through them bravely in my pissed off surrender.

Like life herself, this unknown is no different. She demands my surrender too. The air is thick. The view, limited. The rock surrounding us, slippery and endless. It all feels unruly and yet perfectly ordered.

In the cave my son’s joy begs me to be present. This feels important. Not just for him but for me too.

Oh and there are bats here. BATS. Just flying the f*ck around. Bats hanging casually above my head while I attempt to sleep 60 feet underground next to a place called the ‘snake pit.’ I want an award for everything I just said.

Water dripping on the tarps that cover us with a comforting rhythm. My son looking at me with a face that says I don’t think she’s gonna make it. Dads and sons snoring like freight trains everywhere – not comforting at all except that it signaled to me that everyone in our crew was still alive.

Yesterday I would have been horrified at this picture. My family is currently laughing at it from the comfort of their couches in the city.

But I lean in. I walk intentionally, not just so that I don’t slip and die, but because I want to. Because as Brené wisely reminds me, I want to find everything that the cave has to offer and write a new ending for myself.

I want to honor my son’s leadership and love for the adventure that’s unfolding right now. I want to honor the incredible structure that’s been here lifetimes before we entered it. A cave that feels less and less terrifying by the hour, and more like the peace I’ve been aching for.

I feel held by the cave somehow, not threatened. It feels like protection from the outside world rather than a dark place where dreams go to die and bats eat you alive.

It’s not an accident that this cave is made of Onyx. Onyx and mud. Onyx represents strength, protection, and grounding, believed to have a powerful energy that can absorb and transform negative energy.

She feels like this to me.

I have been here before…I keep feeling. I have been here before.

I have been thrown outside of my zone of comfort and I’ve learned to find comfort within my own being. Home is wherever I am. Comfort is wherever I travel. Physical discomfort comes just as it goes. It’s not personal.

I am learning that we cannot control life just like we cannot control nature. We can only respect it. We can embrace its rhythm and move with it. We can join whoever has made their home here first and hang on faith for the rest.

“Find the cave and write a new ending for yourself. For the people you’re meant to serve and support and for your culture. Choose courage over comfort. Choose whole hearts over armor. And choose the great adventure of being brave and afraid.”

~ Brené Brown

julie harper I AM HER

You know what’s sexy? A healthy person.

A healthy MIND.

A healthy BODY.

A healthy SPIRIT.

Healthy habits. Healthy rituals. Healthy communication. Healthy relationships. A regulated nervous system. A whole bunch of healthy.

Healthy is not relationship drama.

Healthy is not the back and forth of a toxic dynamic and the crazy amount of stress it causes for our hearts and in our lives.

Healthy is not hustle and burnout.

Healthy is not flooding our system with the news and influencers and fake food and soul-numbing substances.

Healthy is not scarcity and doomsday living.

It takes an unhealthy version of us to engage with an unhealthy person and/or lifestyle. It takes an unhealthy version of us to keep it all going - which is great news because that means we can unsubscribe.

Healthy is when harmony feels intoxicating instead of boring.

Healthy is when you crave peace instead of another hit of volatility. Or drama. Or uncertainty. Or jealousy. Or another ruined weekend.

Healthy is when vulnerability feels like a drug. Like deep connection - not a reason to shutdown or run.

Healthy is when safety feels far more interesting than the chase of someone new or unavailable.

Healthy is when kindness turns you on.

Healthy is when trust is sexy.

Healthy is when you are planting in rich soil and growing something true with another healthy person.

Healthy is the hottest thing I can imagine.

julie harper I AM HER

See the thing is…if you had known back then all that was ahead of you, you never would have gone.

If you knew all that would be required of you to live as the you, you are today, you would have stayed put.

If you knew every dark night that you'd have to live through, ahead of time, you never would have said yes.

You never would have said, ‘yes life, take me through hell. Show me around this horrible place until it feels like the only place…so that I can know heaven. The truth. My power. My reason. My heart.'

If you knew ahead of time, every terrifying question that you would ever ask, you would have manipulated your way to an answer less true. You never would have let the truth have her way.

If you knew every beautiful and heartbreaking answer you were gonna get down the road, you never would have asked. You never would have walked it. You never would have found out that everything you ever wanted was on the exact road you absolutely positively over my dead body, didn’t want to walk.

You would have stood still and you know it.

You would have let your whole life be unanswered.

I don’t think we know who we are all at once. That would be too much for anyone. And we have to purge pretty much everything we've ever absorbed from birth on, in order to get to her.

We wouldn’t have the capacity to hold the power of who we really are if our power was just handed over. We would collapse. Not because we can't be strong in moments, but because the strength we need for a lifetime is the sustained kind.

Strength that stays. Strength that doesn't fade. Strength that rises up through us from the ground we're consistently rooting ourselves in.

So we learn ourselves in layers. In seasons. In bite-sized pieces. In shedding and shaking and letting go of whatever gets too tight.

And none of it’s all that pretty...but all of it is beautiful. Breathtaking really.

We have to unlearn everything (but for real though) to find out who we were from the beginning. And that girl is it. She is EVERYTHING. Potent. Powerful. Designed perfectly for this place. She is the most breathtaking thing I can imagine.

I AM HER

We spend so much our lives trying to decide our next move.  Weighing our anxieties, secret little insanities and unknowns. We doom scroll through worst case scenarios and most likely scenarios, and sometimes we manage to make it to the best case ones.

But people, EVERYTHING is a risk.

Literally EVERYTHING.

Every date could be your soulmate or a sociopath. Every relationship could end in heartbreak or happily ever after.  Every job that appears to be the golden ticket, could turn on you in 6 months or take you all the way to the top of the ladder.

Walking out your front door is a risk.  Staying at home in sweatpants for too long, is a risk. My mom says sweatpants are a much bigger risk for me. Having kids - AKA watching your heart walk around on this crazy planet, is a risk. 

Watch the news for 5 seconds and you’ll know that risk is everywhere and there’s a solid argument that safety isn’t a thing. Risk is so personal and at the same time the most universal.

One way I see us attempting to dodge risk, is by believing in other people’s visions more than own. Trusting his ideas and credentials and charisma, instead of our own ancient compass that’s never been wrong. Not once.

I watch us wait. Wait another month. Wait another year until we wake up on some jarring birthday cemented in to a life we outgrew before it even became our life.

We paved ourselves into his path and called it being supportive. We said yes sweetly and with an embarrassing amount of relief, because his road seemed more sure than the big ass question mark that we believed we were. And still do.

Their road was smarter.  Certain. More mature. Less risky. Not messy. Not chaotic. Not emotional. Not missing important functioning adult woman pieces.

And because if it doesn’t work out, it was their idea right?  Their life. We’re off the hook.  We were just along for the perks of never having to put anything we really care about on the line.

We sell out, but we call it being responsible. We ignore the tugs on our soul.  We hand over decades, pretending that risking for other people is less risky…that taking a risk on ourselves would be like…way too much of a risk.

We downplay our own favorite parts because deep down we believe that their shine is more likely to take us the furthest.

But the ones we follow…the ones we risk it all for...at some point sat all the way alone in a stark season they weren’t ready for, and decided that they were worth the risk.  That if everything’s already a risk, why not risk on this heart? This guy’s ridiculous idea. This girl’s guts.

They held the unknown with shaky hands and said, “why not me?”  They believed in their own direction even though they couldn’t see anything ahead.  They believed in their own hazy mission and didn’t abort it. They believed in their own talents even though those talents were undefined and underdeveloped. 

They trusted the gravity of their own existence and listened to anything but their fear.

If everything’s a risk, why not risk on you? Why not do all the things you know you must do? Why not let it free you into a life of endless possibility?  

Not terrify you.  Free you.

You’re not basic.  Your life isn’t meant to be either. 

Go. It’s time…but you already know that.

julie harper I AM HER

At some point we realize that our only real option is to be ourselves.

The woman we are in this moment. In real time.

Not the one we hope to be someday, the one we actually are.

Not the one who is fixed and perfected, the one we are under any lighting.

The unfiltered.

The raw.

The accessible.

The vulnerable.

The fierce and fiery.

The dynamic.

The pivoting.

The changing her mind.

The demanding.

The stunning.

The wondering.

The certain.

The rising again and again out of the fucking wasteland woman.

The woman who is so much better than the fantasy.

The woman who is bravely holding her entire history in one back pocket and a whole life of possibility in the other.

What's gone isn’t even close to as good as what’s coming. I promise.

The real you. She's it. She's the one.

I love us so much.

~ jules

I AM HER

Maybe this is your sign? To like...do the thing you know you must do?

It isn't that you're not ready. It's that you've decided you're not.

It isn't that you're not ready. It's that deep down you're still wrestling down your own definition of enoughness...trying to figure out what enough would feel like if you were.

It isn't that you're not ready. It's that you want it to be perfect before anyone sees it. It's that you don't like the crushing vulnerability of being a beginner at an age you think you shouldn't be beginning.

It isn't that you're not ready. It's that you just don't fully grasp the truth that no one knows what they're doing. No one. Everyone is scared and wrestling with their own bravery.

And the ones who have it all together are often the most scared. They have more to lose. More pride. People take them too seriously so they have to have an airtight plan. They never get to just see about something and play. They create under a big pile of expectations with no room to be a messy little beginner.

Don't let preparation kill it. You know? That pretty great idea that kept you up at night and lit you up like a Christmas tree? The one you shoved in your closet and quit talking about.

Don’t hide behind the ‘security’ of another degree. Or another class. Another retreat. Another certification. Another something outside of you.

Don't let your dream of winning the lifetime achievement award for being the one perfect person who ever lived on the earth, keep you from running after aliveness.

So unless you’re getting yourself all geared up and qualified to do brain surgery, at some point you just gotta leap.

At some point, (like now would be a good time), you gotta rip off the bandaid and declare yourself enough. You have to set your basket of security blankets aside and lean on your own intelligent heart.

That thing you’re about to do because you think you need it in order to move forward with your vision, you don’t. You may enjoy it, it may help you...but you don’t need it.

You just gotta leap and trust that whatever is rough will get smoother. Whatever is in need of some tuning will tune itself in the air.

julie harperI AM HER

As you get older, and hopefully more healed inside your skin, I hope that you choose not to build your relationships off the connection of wounds.

Of drama.

Of highs and lows.

Of fighting and making up over and over indefinitely.

Of breaking connection and forcing repair.

Of saying things no one ever really recovers from.

I hope you don't have to stitch up what you shattered.

I hope somebody else doesn't have to stitch up what they shattered in you.

I hope you don't carry around a bunch of sorries just in case.

I hope there are no more hangovers, and can't remembers, and morning afters in your future.

As you get older I hope you go, ‘be good to me from the start.’

Be good to me at the beginning.

Be good to me in the middle.

Be good to me in the end.

Protect what we have.

Protect what is rare.

Guard what some never find.

Don't fuck up what is pure.

Don't ruin what is the most beautiful.

I hope you have less people around you who are always saying, 'I'm sorry' and more people who say, 'I would never do that to you.'

Good to you from the beginning.

Expect nothing less.

julie harper I AM HER

You were just chasing safety. That's all.

That's why most women make the choices they make.

Safety.

Some promise of protection even if that protection is fake. Even if there are a thousand strings attached to it.

You weren't bad. You weren't weak. You weren't naive. You weren't reckless. You are a human woman living in a world that isn't safe for women. You are navigating a world that has built itself with you as an afterthought.

You weren't stupid. You were raised in a culture that spoon fed you a blueprint of womanhood that was only ever going to leave you stranded. Eventually begging someone for something. Eventually compromising in the name of survival. Eventually shutting up because survival always wins.

You're not gonna override nature sweets.

You were led down a road of pretty promises that only deliver if you stay in line. Only if you learn to do smiling through self-betrayal well.

I know for me, my worst decisions came from this place. The place of not knowing what I signed up for. Not knowing what kind of critical condition I was in.

The place of paralyzing fear that I wasn’t going to be ok and my kids weren't going to be ok if I didn’t cling to the familiar I was in, even if my familiar was terrifying - which it was.

Even if I was a shell of myself there. Even if I was dying there.

I’ve done more work around self-forgiveness, which I kindly refer to as ‘not hating myself work,' than any other work I’ve done.

But I forgive myself now. I really do, because I get it. I see why she couldn't leave sooner and I would give anything to run back and scoop her up.

But my decade long work in self-forgiveness has brought me to a level of vitality, love and freedom that I didn’t know existed.

So I say to you, you were just chasing safety. You needed shelter because everyone needs that. That's all. It makes perfect sense. You were doing exactly what nature demanded of you. What life demanded.

So forgive her.

Forgive her for everything.

Forgive her so fully and freely that people get annoyed.

It’s impossible to be a woman, so the fact that you're even reading this means you will thrive now.

~ julie harper I AM HER

If you love them, love their journey. The whole thing. Not just the parts that are easy for you to stomach. Not just the parts that make you feel secure. Not just the parts that make sense to you now. Not just the parts that are impressive or sane.

All the parts.

Because all the parts make up the one you love so much. Every part mattered. The lovely and not so lovely. Every detour refined her direction. Every unruly season clarified what matters most to him now.

My favorite people have been through it. The absolute dark and filthy mess. Eras of loss and losers and things they didn't deserve. Years of collapse and years of rebuilding. Decisions made from self-respect and decisions made from a major lapse in it.

All I know is don't judge their journey. Don't try to make sense of it through the lens of what you would have done. Or a version of them you didn't know. A version they no longer recognize.

Loving their journey lets you love them more truly in the present...which is all there is anyway.

Love you people.

~ julie harper I AM HER

PROUD.  Today would be a good day to say out loud,

"I am so proud of myself."  Without any additives. Without lowering your voice. Without any buts…

I am so proud of how far I’ve come since all of those times that I didn’t believe I'd go very far at all. 

I am so proud of myself for how much I’ve learned about so many things I didn’t want to learn about.  How much I didn't understand that I understand deeply now.  How much I didn’t know about the world and people and myself, but do now. 

It has revealed a very wise woman.

A woman who is both ancient and new. Deep and light. Many-sided. Intuitive and fierce. Baptized in fire not water.

I am so proud of how much I’ve endured and healed. How much I've forgiven when they didn’t try to repair. How much I’ve thawed and woken up. How much strength and softness I can carry at the same time. 

How much bolder I move everywhere.  How much I've loved and lost and let go of, and yet somehow continue to show up for this life with more love than I had before. Still digging for truth even when it’s hard to find.

I am so proud of every facet of myself that I fought for.  That I keep fighting for and bringing back home to me.

And even though it is increasingly impossible to be a woman on this planet…

I am still giving myself possibility. Every single damn day I am giving myself possibility and hope and opportunity and education and protection and love and respect and rights and awe - even when it’s not being offered. Especially then.

So say it..."I am so fucking proud of myself."

julie harper I AM HER

I know It's tempting to harden when we live in a world that is the hardest...but keep looking for the ones who soften you. I promise they're out there.

The people who come along and extend a steady hand and a soft landing. These are my favorite ones.

A minute of their undivided presence can undo a lifetime of armor. They'll walk right through every wall you've ever built. They don’t require your hardness or even your strength. Only what is raw.

They let what is real surface. They let what is most tender...stay.

I know how to fight. I know strength, sass, swearing and self-protection. I know a hard comeback. I know how to give one and I know how hard it hits on its way back.

But I don’t think that’s what most of us want. I don’t think we want to keep armoring up even though we can. I think we all ache for soft safe people in this life.

Look for the ones who soften you. The ones, who without even trying, inspire you to exhale the breath you’re always holding in. The ones who don't demand your strength. The ones who don't inspire that hard comeback.

Look for the ones who bring out the lover in you, not the fighter. These are your safe ones - so at peace in their own skin that they’re at peace with you when you're unraveled in vulnerability.

They make room. They hold wide open spaces.

There are no digs or jokes at your expense. There are no eye-rolls or dumbing you down. There is no suck it up and overriding your experience. Just love, an acceptance that you'll be skeptical of at first and a feeling of home.

Who softens you?

julie harper I AM HER

The right thing doesn't wait.  It doesn't wait for you to be cozy.  It doesn't wait for perfect circumstances.  It doesn't call ahead and politely ask if now would be a good time.  You don't get to tell it to wait outside for an extra hour or month or year so that you can ready yourself more. 

The right thing doesn't run on any timeline that you would consider to be at all appropriate.

The right thing is unreasonable.  Insane really...but beautiful in every way that it needs to be for you to know. It will show up unexpected, grab your hand and it will fit.  Not almost.  All the way.  And when the right thing comes and sits down next to you, you won't be able to imagine it ever sitting anywhere but next to you.

The right thing won't be deterred by your shock. It won't be unsure when you try to be.  And when you're finally done arguing with yourself and all of your justifiable fears, you'll surrender to this right thing because you won't be able to find a good reason not to...and you won't want to find a reason.

The right thing doesn't come when you're all gathered up and settled in.  It comes as you're gathering again.  As you're learning to let go of something old and something new.  And as you're healing what you thought you already healed, the right thing comes along and heals it permanently.

It slips through the one crack you swore you triple sealed.  It casually walks through the back door as you're meticulously monitoring the front porch.

The right thing doesn't follow your rules. It makes you question what your rules were for. It shifts your insides.  Your heart.  Your vision. Your plans.  It makes the complicated - simple. The unclear - crystal.  One day you believed that you almost had everything under control, and the next you wake up and your life is the wilderness. The way it was intended to be.

Vast.  True.  Exciting.  Terrifying.  Unknown.

Certain.  Untamed.  Calm.  Alive.

And somewhere in the deepest deep, you know. You trust that what you're feeling is an unwritten story already written in the stars.  You thought you had a say in how it was all gonna go but you didn't.  Not really.  Not ever.  Not at all.  But for the first time ever you're okay with that, because for the first time

ever it is right...

julie harper I AM HER