I Am Beautiful!

by Nia Peeples

I am a doer. I do, do, do. Yes I’m very capable but I have known my whole life that all that doing was protecting me from something. Hiding me away, keeping me safe. From a distance people experience me as powerful, outgoing, funny. But those closest to me know that I’m shy. In a room full of people I shrink unless I have a task to perform, i.e., if I’m speaking or performing or promoting some film or TV program….

What have I been hiding from?

Before I even set foot in Angel Valley for Kim’s retreat I set a clear intention. I wasn’t there to figure anything out. My intention was simply to be, to hear. I just wanted to exist and allow everything to unfold. And unfold it did.

The second day we were there, Kim took us to three different vortexes. A vortex is the funnel shape created by the motion of spiraling energy. In Sedona this energy comes up from the ground. It resonates with and strengthens one’s Inner Being. She asked us to just sit, close our eyes and allow whatever was to come up, to come up. Some people felt warmth in their hands and feet. Some felt an overwhelming rush of peace or they saw colors. For me, I felt nothing in the first two. But when we sat at the third I was immediately over come by this feeling of beauty. Not of witnessing beauty, but of being beauty. I felt beautiful, so beautiful, whole. Then I heard the words:

Nia, you’re beautiful. You’re safe to be beautiful. For me this was so significant. Me, Nia, as I am, without doing or giving or performing, without problem solving or over achieving, I am beautiful. As I am, as I breathe, in my purest most simple form, I am beautiful. And it is safe to be so. It is safe to be all that I am.

It was then that I realized I have been apologizing for myself my entire life by either over achieving or under presenting (being shy.) I’m sorry for being funny, I’m sorry for being smart, I’m sorry for being capable and athletic and loving or for whatever. Anytime I had something that someone else didn’t have or accomplished something someone else didn’t accomplish right at that moment, I felt bad. I felt as though my accepting that I’m worthy of any of that made others feel as if they were not. And so I’ve spent my life working my butt of to prove to people that I earned it. I earned it by dedicating what they weren’t willing to in time, effort, blood, sweat and tears.

It’s so ironic that I know, very deeply, that everyone is beautiful. Everyone is so incredibly valuable. As they are, as they breathe, each and every person brings to this planet something so incredibly unique and valuable simply by being born, by being present on this planet. I believe that to the very core of my being. Through EOL, day after day I encouraging people to live their lives in the glory of that beauty, to identify it, embrace it and have faith in it and yet I myself have spent the majority of my life unable to fully stand in my own. This is what I have been hiding from my entire life. And this is what I now fully embrace: