When I stopped waiting - and started leading

There was a moment in My life when I realized  no one is coming to safe Me and just hand Me My crown.

So I reached for it herself.

For Me, that moment arrived on an ordinary day in 2006 standing in line for coffee, hair in a messy knot, mentally juggling deadlines, errands, and the constant war of thoughts in My head.  At the time I caught my reflection in the window and saw someone who looked like she was waiting…for permission, for reassurance, for someone else to take the first step.

I didn’t like that version of Myself, too dependent, too insecure.  

So I made a decision to take action and then everything changed. 

That day, I made a quiet promise to Myself:

I’m done shrinking. I’m done making myself small - I am ready to take up space. To demand it. 

And then, beautifully and ruthlessly I  followed through.

I began speaking My mind never softening the edges.
Saying exactly what I wanted without apologizing for wanting it.
Choosing people who admired My strength instead of being threatened by it! 

And something interesting happened.

People responded.

When I walked into a room, conversations shifted. Not because I demanded the attention in that moment, but because I radiated the kind of certainty that makes others instinctively stand a little straighter. I became the woman whose opinions people asked for, whose confidence others tried to decode, whose presence created its own gravitational pull.

I didn’t need to force it.
I didn’t need to prove my self.
I simply was.

And the people in my life, ob friends, lovers, or even strangers,..they all began treating Me with a kind of reverence I’d never known before. 

And not the pedestal kind that traps you, but the genuine kind: the quiet admiration for a woman who leads with intention and doesn’t apologize for loving herself out loud.

I loved it.

Not because I needed to be worshipped, but because I had spent years underestimating just how deeply I deserved to be. The attention wasn’t the point, it was the reflection of the work I’d done, the energy I carried, the standards I began to  honor. 

I didn’t wait for respect.

I created it.

I didn’t hope for devotion.

I naturally inspired it.

And in the end, I didn’t just take charge of My life, I moved to New York and I became the kind of woman who makes “taking charge” look like an art form.