Owning Myself
For much of my life, I knew how to be the person I was supposed to be.
I was the model child, the model student, and eventually the model citizen. I followed the rules, met expectations, and did what I believed was right.
But somewhere along the way, I had never learned how to truly own myself.
In 2013, I left Canada and moved halfway around the world to Singapore. I thought that changing my surroundings might help me discover who I really was.
Instead, I discovered that I had brought myself with me.
The same ideas of right and wrong. The same shoulds and shouldn'ts. The same expectations I had spent years absorbing.
My environment had changed, but I hadn't.
It took time for me to understand that I couldn't escape my conditioning by changing my circumstances. The work had to happen within me.
Then, unexpectedly, life gave me an opportunity to grow in a way I could never have planned.
Someone close to me suffered a major stroke, and I suddenly found myself responsible for navigating a world I had never prepared for. I became a caregiver, advocate, manager, and decision-maker. I coordinated care, managed practical and financial realities, made difficult decisions, and learned to speak with authority when another person's wellbeing depended on me.
It was a trial by fire.
But somewhere in the middle of that experience, something changed.
I stopped feeling like I had to ask for permission to live my own life.
I discovered that owning myself did not mean doing everything alone. It meant taking responsibility for my life, speaking honestly, making decisions, and standing by them without shame.
For many years, I thought self-ownership meant simply refusing to let other people define me.
But there was a problem.
I knew what I didn't want to be. I didn't necessarily know who I wanted to become.
Today, my understanding is different.
Owning yourself means becoming the authority of your own life.
It means questioning inherited beliefs. Understanding your own needs and values. Establishing boundaries. Choosing relationships, commitments, and opportunities from genuine desire rather than obligation.
And perhaps most importantly, it means no longer looking outside yourself for permission to be who you are.
I choose to live consciously, every day.
Perhaps that is where your own journey begins.