03/29/2026
Coming Back to Yourself
I watched a short video on Disney called Self. It follows a wooden doll living in a world where everything looks polished and perfect. Everyone around her seems smooth, shiny, and put together. Then she notices her reflection, and something shifts. She starts to feel like she’s not enough the way she is.
So she begins changing herself. She adds pieces, reshapes parts of her body, and keeps adjusting, trying to match what she thinks she’s supposed to look like. At first it feels exciting, almost like progress. Like she’s finally becoming better. But it doesn’t stop. The more she changes, the more she feels like she still needs more. It turns into this constant cycle of trying to fix something that was never actually broken.
Watching that felt familiar. At some point, you start believing you have to be more, more beautiful, more successful, more desirable, more like someone else. And without even realizing it, you begin to slowly move away from who you really are.
I think this shows up a lot in relationships too. You care about someone, so you start giving more, adjusting more, trying harder. You want to be what they need, what they want. And little by little, you stop checking in with yourself. You stop asking what you need. You start shaping yourself around them, and in that process, parts of you begin to disappear.
In the video, everything eventually falls apart. All the extra pieces she added can’t hold together, and they come crashing down. What’s left is her original self. Simple, imperfect, but real. And in that moment, you realize that was always enough.
That’s the part that stayed with me. There was never anything wrong with her to begin with.
Think about who you were before you started questioning your worth. Before you felt like you had to prove yourself, change yourself, or earn your place in someone’s life. That version of you is still there.
You are still whole. You are still enough.
You were never meant to become someone else. You were meant to be yourself. You are rare, and you are remarkable.