Every Limitation Is a Lie

Let me tell you what happened at 10 o'clock on a random Tuesday night.

I was detangling my hair. Dry. If you know anything about kinky curly hair, you already winced because you know that is a whole violation. But I kept going, pulling and stretching every bend out until I had a stick-straight afro sitting on top of my head. Went to sleep on it. Woke up the next morning, looked in the mirror, and my hair was actually kind of cute. So I wore it to work.

That should have been a simple decision. It was not. I worked in a predominantly white space, and the whole walk in, my stride had changed. Short, choppy, fast, like I could move through the building before anybody noticed me. I had made a bold choice and then immediately started cowering inside of it, waiting for someone to confirm that I didn't belong. Nobody flinched. Nobody said a word. And that silence cracked something open in me, because I realized the limitation was never the room. It was never the office, never the colleagues, never the industry. The limitation was the story I had already agreed to before I walked through the door.

That is the trick. Every limitation is a lie, and we spend our whole lives trying to fit ourselves inside of it.

Who Told You That?

Society told us that long, silky, flowy hair is beautiful. The curlier it is, the better, as long as it looks a certain kind of way — soft enough, loose enough, close enough to something that was never designed with us in mind. And so we press it, relax it, hide it, apologize for it. We contort the thing God gave us to match a standard He never authored.

But that is just hair. The same script plays on every channel.

Everybody is on a weight loss drug right now and you're not, so now you feel behind. Or you've been fighting your body for years and Ozempic is the thing that is finally helping you heal, and now you feel like you have to defend that. The strong Black woman who is not supposed to need rest, not supposed to need help, not supposed to crack under pressure that would break anyone. The angry Black woman. The loud one. The one with struggle love. The one who holds the family together while nobody asks if she's okay. You could throw a rock in any direction and hit a stereotype that was built to keep you small, keep you performing, keep you so busy trying to fit the label that you never stop to ask who made it and why.

Here is the answer: it was not God.

If He didn't give it to you, it is because it was not what you needed. That goes for:

• Hair texture and body type
• Personality and volume
• Ambition and the way you lead
• The way you love

If it did not come from Him, it was not designed for you. It was designed for your containment.

Believe It or Defy It

Every time you run up against a limitation, you are standing at a choice. Believe it and shrink, fold yourself into the box, spend your energy trying to be something that was never meant to fit your frame. Or defy it, keep moving, and let the lie fall behind you as you go.

The enemy is not creative. He finds the place where you already feel uncertain — your hair, your body, your voice, your ambition — and he builds a wall there and calls it a standard. But let's be clear: God raises standards. The enemy just builds walls and hopes you won't know the difference. And the most dangerous thing you can do is trade your belief system for other people's opinions, because the moment you do, you stop living your life and start performing theirs.

So before you shrink, before you straighten, before you apologize for taking up space, ask yourself: is this God's standard or nah?

Show Up As Yourself. All The Way.

That young girl scurrying into the office with her choppy stride wasn't defying anything. She was trying to shrink fast enough to fit in somebody's box before anybody noticed she didn't belong in it. I know her well. I was her.

But the woman I am today doesn't scurry. She steps on the box. Jumps on it. Because when you know who you are and whose you are, the box stops being a threat and starts being a platform.

Whatever they are trying to box you in with right now — your size, your hair, your volume, your ambition, your emotions, your age, your season — don't climb inside it. Step on it. Because you are not defined by a label someone else wrote. You are not contained by a limitation someone else built. You were called, you were chosen, and you were made exactly as you were supposed to be made. Knowing that is not arrogance. It is your birthright. Walk in it.