How big is your box?

I've created a box with my thoughts and words.
It's walls pull closer in response to my can’ts, don'ts, won'ts, shouldn'ts, and no's.

As the enclosure squeezed my essence tighter and tighter. I struggle just to breathe.

It's a comfortable place to be sometimes - tucked into a reality that is the status quo. Never allowing myself to dream beyond the scope of my confinement.

How did I get here?

Did I put myself here?

Did you put me here?

Are you the one pushing the walls in on me with your thoughts and preconceived notions of who I should be? How I should act? What picture the colors of my life should paint?

Maybe another, but not me. You have no power over me. I am too strong and confident to be dented by your ignorance.

Ahhhh, but I did this to myself. For I am my best friend, my own cheerleader, my number one fan.
But I also am my own worse critic, my saboteur, my enemy - my box creator.

With each decision I make, whether visible to the eye, the box expands or contracts and there are days when I don't even feel its scratchy texture rubbing my nakedness.

And then, there are days where it threatens to stop my heart with it deadly grip.

Why did I create it? To protect me from dreaming, from living as big as I possibly can?

For I am worthy of greatness, destined to be remembered, deemed to change the world with my gifts and talents - called out to lead people with a heart big enough to love them more than they could imagine possible.

Ah, but the box beckons me to return and think of myself, only me in the box. If I stay here I will continue to walk amongst the crowd of other slaves in society, most likely including you and everyone you know....

But if I choose to, I can break free and make a difference, a difference in my life and yours. I have the capacity to create a different reality than the dark confined prison that I currently know and I set my thoughts in determination and stand up - shattering the flimsy fiber of that which appeared impenetrable.

I can breathe
I can live 
I love wildly 
I can dream 
I can dance 
I can sing 
I can be who I was meant to be - unbound.

How big is your box and why are you still in it?