what i wish someone had told me when i was a teenager

I want to take you back to high school for a minute.

Tall. Lanky. No curves to speak of. And a uniform that was about ten sizes too big because my mom bought it thinking I would grow into it.

I never did.

I walked those hallways every day feeling like everyone could see exactly how uncomfortable I was in my own skin. The awkwardness. The occasional zit you could probably spot from three zip codes away. The constant second guessing of everything I said, everything I wore, everything I did.

I had a great friend group. And within that small circle I could breathe. I could let my guard down and actually be myself for a few minutes.

But the moment anyone else entered the room, something shifted. My body went on high alert. The wall went up. Not because anything had actually gone wrong. But because my nervous system was convinced something was about to.

I was so focused on what everyone else was thinking about me that I had completely lost track of what I actually thought about myself. What I wanted. Who I was becoming.

Nobody told me that was normal.

Nobody sat me down and said -- hey, that feeling of not knowing who you are yet? That is not a flaw. That is just being seventeen. And it is not permanent.

Nobody told me that the girl worrying about looking stupid in the hallway would one day become a nurse, a life coach, a mom, a mentor. That all of that discomfort was actually building something. That the awkward, lanky girl in the oversized uniform was going to figure it out.

I just wish someone had told me sooner that I did not have to have it all figured out yet.

That fitting in was never actually the goal. That the real work was learning to feel at home in myself, not in someone else's idea of who I should be.

That is exactly why I do what I do today.

Because I know what it feels like to walk through your own life on high alert, building walls to protect yourself from something that has not even happened yet. Shrinking yourself down to avoid taking up too much space. Spending so much energy on what everyone else is thinking that you forget to think about what you actually want.

And I know that teenagers today are carrying all of that, plus a phone full of perfectly filtered versions of everyone else's highlight reel.

If I could go back and sit with that tall, lanky, zit-faced girl in the oversized uniform, I would tell her this:

You are not too much. You are not too little. You are exactly who you are supposed to be right now. And who you are becoming is so much bigger than anything you can see from here.

If you have a teenager who needs to hear that, share this with them.

And if you are that teenager, hi. I made all of this for you.

Free 2-minute quiz: What's Actually Holding You Back?
Work with me: carinrassier.com/workwithme

I help teens and young adults ages 16-22 find their footing when everything feels like too much.