In My Warrior Queen Era

I came across this incredible quote from an entrepreneur’s inspiration page on Instagram. How I wish I had saved that post– I can’t find it. But to paraphrase, it states that a lot of becoming a successful entrepreneur requires a radical “shedding” of your old self. The smaller version of yourself whose light is dimmed so others don’t have to squint at your luminance, or cower in your shadow.

This post is dedicated to honoring the old Belicia, the scared inner child. Seeing her with clarity, speaking kindness to her, and bidding her farewell.

…

Dear Little Bel,

You lived your life so scared to speak above a whisper, though people may not guess it, upon first glance. You grew up in an environment where to express your opinion was castigated as a sign of disrespect. If you so much as talked back to your gymnastics coach, you would be kicked out of the gym. You were kicked out for other reasons– for crying, for showing emotion, for being a human being. I want you to know that this was NOT normal. You didn’t have the freedom to be a child… so you had to grow up fast, grow a second skin, a gilded armor, to rise up the ranks of sport. You were taught to reject your humanity, you were molded into a cold, unfeeling, goal-achieving machine, and that was the only way you knew how to receive love. You conflated respect and admiration and external validation with love… you were not modeled a healthy, unconditional love, growing up. You felt you had to win your way into people’s hearts. Even if it meant compromising on your values and tainting your innate purity. You lost your innocence young. I am so sorry for that.

You bulldozed through your first 21 years with accolades galore. You were the model student, the star athlete, the kid that your mom didn’t have to worry about. People praised you for your intelligence, your savviness, your work ethic, your focus and grit. You should be proud of yourself for all those things, and you still are those things. But earning so much validation at such a young age rendered your ego fragile. All your self worth came from external derivatives– you were deprived of the opportunity to learn how to love yourself, from within. Setbacks, big or small, were debilitating. Remember that time you jumped into an ice cold pool to “punish” yourself for getting rejected by Stanford, and caught a cold as a result? Yeah, not normal. Maybe an emergent sign of mental illness. But because you were an athlete, you were trained to pick yourself back up and keep working hard. Work will set you free, became your motto (the same words that greeted prisoners at the gates of Auschwitz).

Your life was hollow, and your worldview narrow. You obsessed over work and achievement, and your single-minded obsession served you to achieve big things in school, sports, and now in entrepreneurship. You’ve always done well by external metrics. But you needed to be humbled, you needed to be shown the softer side of human existence, you needed to learn that life was not one big mountain to scale, but a beautiful journey made up of a million present moments, and that love is the greatest beauty of all– a concept foreign to you until now. You don’t climb your way up to Heaven. Heaven is already here on Earth, you just were blinded to it all these years.

That is, until bipolar happened. The diagnosis you didn’t ask for. Bipolar gave you a glimpse of hell. All other darkness you faced up till that point were but mere shades of gray. Bipolar was blackness… it made you the black sheep in your family. The only mentally ill kid in a picture-perfect family. You saw Hell, and it was that contrast that made you realize that Heaven was here, all along. You just didn’t see it until it was torn away. Mental illness was the hand you were dealt, and I know this used to feel grossly unfair. I’m sorry for all that bipolar stole from you. But you also gained so much from it. Bipolar was the hard-earned lesson in wisdom, humility, and humanity. Bipolar opened your eyes to your limitations, and you no longer spurn them as signs of weakness, but as emblems of your humanity. It showed you that you are, in fact, a human being. It gave you permission to take care of yourself– demanded it, in fact. It taught you the power of human connection, because you did not survive bipolar on your own. You needed your therapist, doctor, close friends, and family to lift you up from the depths of mental illness. You worked hard on yourself, but this was a battle you fought alongside many others.

Now, at 27, you are becoming everything you have ever hoped for, and more. You are continuing to crush it in your work life, but in a much different way than before. You trek forth on your relentless pursuit of creation driven by mission and purpose, rather than selfish ambition. You live beyond yourself. Clout, money, fame… if they come into your life, that’s great. But they will be a byproduct of your overarching mission to serve. You strive to make an impact, to help others, and that in itself is the reward. That is pathway way to Heaven.

So now that you are in your Warrior Queen era– building companies, brands, content, and communities– what are some things you need to leave behind?

1. people-pleasing
2. perfectionism
3. being a “yes woman”
4. being desperate for love
5. losing yourself in love
6. addictive habits
7. lack of integrity
8. lack of honesty
9. impatience
10.  Other Woman, second-choice syndrome (aka, Felicia)
11. self-absorption
12. ego

What are some things you need to gain?

1. standing up for my beliefs
2. beginner’s mentality
3. using the word “NO”, now more than ever
4. loving myself, and finding someone who can love me as I am
5. staying true to myself, even when in love
6. discipline surrounding substances
7. saying what I mean, doing as I say
8. speaking hard truths
9. patience
10. “Juliet” status in your Great Love story (aka, Belicia)
11. unrelenting desire to serve
12. humility

Bel, you are awesome. You deserve to love yourself… you don’t need others to tell you how great you are for you to believe it. You know it, in your heart of hearts, that you are a queen with a golden heart. You have suffered enough. Make each day henceforth a celebration of hard-earned stability, health, and blessings. To be alive is a gift in itself. You are so blessed and loved and appreciated by many. You have a lot of love to give to the world. What will you do with all your love? I can’t wait to see it.

With love,

27 y/o Bel, 11/12/25