Rewiring core beliefs feels like the devilโs work.
Original Belief 1:
โI do not feel worthy of being cared for.โ
Unicorned Rewrite:
โI was taught I was not worth care. That was a lie someone else handed me.
Now, I am slowly remembering that care is not something to earnโit is something I already deserve, simply for being.โ
Original Belief 2:
โCaring for myself is not real care. I was told that other people will care for you when you do for them.โ
Unicorned Rewrite:
โThey taught me care was transactional. That I had to earn it through exhaustion or service.
Now I am learning: real care starts with me, and when I care for myself, I become the kind of person who knows what real care even looks like.โ
(And though I do not know what care truly means in a practical sense, sometimes my heart needs to overhear what my mind is not ready to translate yet. If that makes any sense ๐)
Original Belief 3:
โIf I am not suffering, I am not working hard enough.โ
(My grandmother said that you are only trying when you are failing.ย You do it right, or you do not do it at all ๐ฅฒ wrapping perfectionism in a bow and called it effortโฆ huzzah!)
Unicorned Rewrite:
โThey measured worth in sweat and sacrifice. But I am learning: rest is not laziness. Joy is not indulgence.
I do not need to suffer to prove I am trying. I can succeed without bleeding for it.โ
(Here is a spicy thought: what if failure is the right way sometimes? What if tryingโand wobblingโis not the shameful part, but the human part? What if all those missteps are the doing-it-right?)
Original Belief 4:
โBeing beautiful is vanity, and vanity is for rich white women.โ
(This one has so many jagged edges hidden in its folds. It is not just about appearanceโit is about class, race, survival, inherited shame, and where you have been taught not to belong. Like being beautiful is stepping out of your assigned box. Like it is dangerous. Or selfish. Or meaningless.)
Unicorned Rewrite:
โBeauty is my essence, not a performance. It is not for approval. It is how I exist in colour, texture, and soul. To be beautiful is to belong to myself. My beauty is not negotiable or measured by their mirrors. It is rooted in survival, in defiance, in truth. Beauty is not whiteness. It is witness. And I will not erase myself to fit in someone elseโs frame.โ
(European beauty standards are golden. We cannot argue that. When the average person points out a beautiful woman it is never a dark-skinned black woman, it is always a blue-eyed blonde woman.ย
Though โwhiteโ people (using the term very loosely) are whatโฆ 5% of the world population but 98% of what we see in films and television?
Beauty, like so many ideas passed down, was carved by colonisers and culture-peddlers, then sold back to the rest of the world with interest. Entire generations internalised that proximity to whiteness was the price of admission to worthinessโwhile simultaneously being told they could never afford the ticket.
My grandmother was not wrong from her contextโshe was surviving. But what she believed and what was true are not the same. She passed the rulebook written by someone else.)
Original Belief 5:
โI have no value as a woman because I am no longer 20.โ
(Nothing like reeking of societyโs recycled garbage. Let us dissect it like the rubbish it is:
Somewhere, a cultural voice decided that women expire. That love is a young personโs game. That being 20 is the pinnacle and everything after is a slow fade-out. That voice is sexist. Ageist. Shallow as a kiddie pool.
And utterly false.
I can thank every star in the universe that I am not 20 any longer. I have lived. Learned. I have stories and wisdom and laughter that rolls in like thunder. I know what I like. ย And what it is worth. Twenty-year-olds? They are still unwrapping the instruction manual.)
Unicorned Rewrite:
โI am not 20. I am better. My life is not on a timer. It is on my terms, and the person worthy of meeting me now? They will be lucky they did not find me back thenโbecause I have only got more real, more radiant, more me.โ
