“What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have." 

-Oprah Winfrey, Golden Globes 2018

I’ve always had the most difficult time holding my peace and letting the Lord fight my battles. I guess that’s just the way the Lord designed me. Ask me anything along the lines of how I feel or what I think and well… you will get the unadulterated truth. Now, don’t misunderstand I’m not one to just blurt out how I feel, I can be very much quiet and I don’t really volunteer my opinions because there are people in this world that do that more than is really necessary. Nevertheless, I have found that there is always a necessity to speak my truth.

It’s funny because thinking about it, even though, growing up, my father and I were never really close for reasons that are just too much to explain, I always had this effortless ability to say just about anything to the man. My mom would sometimes just look in amazement at our interactions because even though it would take a little pumping and priming, eventually the conversation would be completely unfiltered. I never had a problem just being very candid, I guess because I didn’t really care what I said given the fact I didn’t care how he felt. Don’t ask why right now, that’s a WHOLE different blog post (Thank You Lord for growth).

But what I found when examining those interactions is that as we become older, because of our inherent need for acceptance and our progressive fear for what others may think, we begin to filter how we speak and what we feel. Going Junior High and High School, acceptance and friendship was my entire world, so, I inherently camouflaged myself into whatever I needed to be just so I wouldn’t be the outcast. I dummied myself down in more ways than one because it was better to “loved” than to be authentic. And you would think that after all that self-diminishing I would feel better about myself but all it did was scar me because in spite of all that blending in I did I still felt inadequate, and that is something I never want to feel twice.

So, I climbed out of the hole of insecurity that social standards had dug for me and I decided to climb a ladder of self-love and truths. The truth that I am enough. The truth that who I am and what I am matters. The truth that when God made me he broke the mold. The truth that when you walk in your truth you give someone else the strength to walk in theirs. As I have grown older, the need to be socially or politically correct has taken a back seat to my desire to be who I am despite the comfortability of others. I guess that’s why I embarked on this journey to start my brand “Underground Consciousness”. It’s the beginning of self-exploration and expression.

This is my journey back to me, Courtney, the girl before she was tainted by the weight of the world. The girl before the pressure of expectation and insecurity. The girl who was still pure in sight and innocent in perception. The girl who saw the world the way God intended it to be when He created it in seven days… good. This is a journey back to the blueprint and foundation of who God has made me to be and this Brand that God has giving me will be the start of a journey that takes you back to your first love, whatever that love is. Mine, is speaking my truth because it gives me my power back and it strips every naysayer of theirs. At 21 years of age, I am in a place where I have no room to allow your perceptions of my actions and your opinions of my truth to shut my mouth. My truth, empowers me to be me un-apologetically and will help those behind me to never apologize for being exactly who they were designed to be.

Visit my site and learn more about "MY Truth " https://www.undergroundconsciousness.com/