Feeling Empowered with Jexi

10/23/2026

❤️ The Little Girl I Once Was. The Woman I've Become.

I created this image of myself holding baby me, and I wasn't prepared for how deeply it would affect me.

I was a child of the system.

A broken system that profits from the shattered lives of little humans who have virtually no rights, no voice, and no control over what happens to them.

Exploited. Trafficked through so-called foster homes. Abused by the very people entrusted with our care.

Reminded DAILY what a burden you are. What a waste you are. What a drain you are on everyone around you.

And nobody seems particularly interested in investing in a future they don't believe you're going to have.

After all, the statistics have already decided who you're supposed to become.

A drug addict. A pr******te. Another failure of the system.

Not because of anything you've done, but because of who your parents were and the circumstances you were born into.

Imagine being a little girl and growing up in a world where people have already written the ending to your story before you've even had a chance to live it.

There are only a handful of photographs that survived the chaos of those years. Maybe four or five images spanning my entire life from birth to fifteen.

I look at them with mixed emotions.

They're proof that I existed. That there was a little girl before there was a survivor.

But they're also reminders of a childhood I spent much of my life trying to forget.

As a teenager and young adult, I tried to pretend that wasn't my past.

We didn't talk about it.

Not because it didn't matter, but because the truth made other people uncomfortable.

My experiences were too painful, too ugly, too much for people to hear.

So I learned to make them smaller.

I learned to tell the acceptable version of my story. The one that didn't upset anyone. The one where I was strong, resilient, and everything eventually worked out.

But the truth is, I didn't get to walk away from that childhood just because other people didn't want to hear about it.

I carried it everywhere.

Into friendships. Into relationships. Into motherhood. Into every decision I made about who I was supposed to be.

When you're taught from the beginning that you're unwanted, that your existence is an inconvenience, you can go 2 ways: Prove them right, or prove them wrong. I chose to spend an extraordinary amount of my life trying to prove I was worthy.

I became a people pleaser.

I learned to anticipate everyone's needs, manage their emotions, make myself useful, and give more than I had to give.

I confused being needed with being loved.

I confused being useful with being valuable.

And I tolerated things I never should have tolerated because somewhere inside me was still that little girl, terrified that if she wasn't good enough, helpful enough, or accommodating enough, she'd be discarded again.

I spent decades trying to earn something that should have been mine simply because I existed.

Love. Safety. Belonging.

And the saddest part?

I didn't even recognize what I was doing.

I thought I was being a good person. A good partner. A good mother. A good friend.

And sometimes I was.

But sometimes I was abandoning myself just to keep other people from abandoning me.

Now, as a woman approaching the next, (more senior) chapter of my life, I'm beginning to understand something.

I can't keep pretending that little girl didn't suffer.

I can't pretend the things that happened to her didn't happen.

And I can't deny that those experiences shaped nearly every choice, every relationship, and every turn my life has taken since.

I can't rewrite my childhood.

I can't make the adults responsible for me become the people they should have been.

I can't recover the photographs that were never taken or the years that were stolen.

And I don't need to forgive, forget, or find some beautiful lesson in what happened.

Some things were simply wrong. And they should never have happened to a child.

But I can stop treating that little girl like someone I need to distance myself from.

For most of my life, I searched for a place where I felt genuinely wanted, valued, and safe.

A place where I didn't have to perform, produce, please, or prove my worth to earn my place.

And I never really found it.

Not until I finally turned the entire script around.

I decided to become my own mother.

Not the mother I had.

Not the mother the system assigned me.

The mother that little girl actually needed.

Someone who protects her instead of sacrificing her to keep the peace.

Someone who listens when she's hurting instead of telling her she's too sensitive.

Someone who sets boundaries because her safety matters.

Someone who doesn't measure her worth by how much she can do for other people.

Someone who doesn't threaten to leave when she makes a mistake.

And most importantly, someone who actually wants her.

That's what this image represents to me.

It's not a real photograph. I know that.

But it's a moment I never got to have.

The woman I became, holding the little girl I was.

And when I look at her, I don't see a burden.

I don't see a waste.

I don't see the hopeless future other people predicted for her.

I see a beautiful little human being who was failed by people and institutions that were supposed to protect her.

I see a child who spent far too many years believing that the way she was treated was somehow a reflection of her worth.

And I see someone I wish I could have protected sooner.

For too many years, I've been trying to prove that little girl was worth something.

Today, I'm realizing she never needed to prove a damn thing.

She was worthy from the beginning.

And so am I.

I can't go back and give her the childhood she deserved.

But I can give her something now.

A mother who loves her without conditions.

A mother who believes her.

A mother who will stand up for her.

A mother who won't make her feel guilty for having needs.

A mother who will never make her beg for a place to belong.

Me.

And for the first time in my life, I don't have to wonder whether that little girl is wanted.

Because I want her.

I choose her.

And I'm keeping her. ❤️

10/22/2026

Since everyone's so concerned about what women wear to the gym, I thought I'd dress "appropriately". I made sure to let a man know he's so much prettier when he smiles. They like that attention - he DID smile!

10/18/2026

Had a beautiful day kicking rocks in the backyard ❤️

10/18/2026

Not everyone loves fruitcake. 🍒 And that's okay.
I'm not for everyone. I'm for the people who appreciate a blend of sweetness, a little nuttiness, and a whole lot of character. 🍒🍂

I've learned there's a difference between being a "good woman" and being a woman of good character.

Being good often means meeting other people's expectations. Having good character means standing by your values, even when someone challenges who you are.

Authenticity doesn't mean I'm above criticism. I can acknowledge my mistakes, improve my delivery, and take accountability without abandoning myself.

I don't need to be everyone's favorite snack to own my value. I can improve the recipe without changing what I'm made of. ❤️

10/04/2026

I’ve learned that a bad day is not a bad life, and sometimes the only thing you need to do today is make it to tomorrow.

I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by how they behave when things are inconvenient, when nobody important is watching, and when there is nothing in it for them.

I’ve learned that making a living and making a life are two very different things—and I refuse to sacrifice the second for the first.

I’ve learned that starting over is not the same as starting from nothing. You take everything you learned with you - and that's priceless.

I’ve learned that kindness and boundaries are not opposites. I can love people and still tell them no. I can understand someone and still decide they do not belong in my life.

I’ve learned that being challenged does not require me to abandon my character.

I’ve learned that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is change your mind after receiving new information.

I’ve learned that my intuition gets clearer when I stop arguing with what I already know.

I’ve learned that leadership has very little to do with authority and everything to do with what happens to the people around you because you were there.

I’ve learned that helping someone does not always mean carrying them. Sometimes love looks like handing someone the spoon and reminding them that they are capable of feeding themselves.

I’ve learned that I don't have to make myself smaller to make other people comfortable.

I’ve learned that there are things I once thought would destroy me that eventually became chapters I could close while starting entire new Sagas.

I’ve learned that a soft heart does not require a soft spine.

I’ve learned that there is still beauty after loss, purpose after disappointment, laughter after grief, and life after the version of the future you were certain you were going to have.

I’ve learned that I can be both a work in progress and someone perfectly worth being proud of right now.

I've learned to be compassionate without being naïve, strong without becoming hard, and still willing to change when the evidence changes.

And I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.

Maybe that’s the point.

Life is a Choose Your Own Adventure book... get out of the margins.

10/03/2026

When a woman says “all men”—or even the softer “most men”—what she is often communicating is:
“I don't trust men because of the lived reality I've experienced and watched exist around me.”

Not: “I possess evidence proving every individual man will harm me.”

She's saying she has learned that she cannot identify the safe men just by looking at them or talking to them for a few months—and she is unwilling to assume safety simply because an individual man tells her he belongs in the safe category.

And this is where the male response becomes revealing.
If a woman says, “I don't feel safe around men because of what I've experienced,” and a man's immediate response is to debate her perception because he feels personally implicated—“Not me!”—his response can itself provide information about whether he respects her boundaries and autonomy.

A safe person doesn't require someone else to feel safe around them.

They can tolerate another person's caution, respect their boundaries, and understand that trust is something their behavior can earn—not something they're entitled to receive.

A woman doesn't need statistical proof that this particular man will hurt her before she's entitled to decide:
“I don't want to take that risk with you.”

The woman is saying:
“I don't automatically know which men are safe, so I reserve the right to be cautious.”

And the collective male response becomes:
“You are required to exempt me from your caution because I consider myself one of the safe ones.”

Yeah... but she doesn't know that yet.
That's the entire problem.
He's demanding a privilege he isn't owed, then calling her the problem for maintaining the boundary.

Nobody has a right to be presumed trustworthy by another person.

Trust isn't a verdict about someone's moral worth. It's permission one person chooses to extend based on the information available to them.

So a genuinely respectful response to “I'm cautious around men” can simply be: “I understand.” Or: “Tell me more.”

It doesn't require the woman to reassure him that he's one of the exceptions or listen to a monologue about how he's a good guy who doesn't deserve to be labeled a ra**st just because he's a man.

And there's the irony in action:
Aggressively demanding exemption from someone's boundary demonstrates poor respect for the very boundary being discussed.

Sure - That doesn't prove he's violent. It does prove he's willing to argue with her boundaries on safety though.

And it certainly doesn't provide the evidence of safety he's trying to establish.

Red flags fly high.

And now we're watching people search for the identity of Jane Doe.

But we don't need to know which woman she is to investigate what happened to her.

Just like women don't need to know which man will hurt them before they're allowed to protect themselves.

Stop demanding that women identify the danger perfectly before you'll respect their right to safety.

Her identity isn't the evidence.

I'm Jane Doe.

We're all Jane Doe until none of us are.

10/01/2026

Some people will challenge your character because your authenticity challenges theirs.

They may provoke you, question you, create obstacles, or wait for the moment you finally react—because if they can make you compromise who you are, they don't have to confront the distance between who they are and who they believe they should be.

And after enough of that, you can start making yourself smaller. Quieter. Less visible. Less ambitious. You learn to dim yourself so nobody feels threatened enough to test you.

Don't.

Your job isn't to become small enough that insecure people leave you alone.

Your job is to become so grounded in who you are that being challenged no longer requires you to abandon yourself.

Take up your space. Keep your character. Let their discomfort belong to them.

05/03/2026

It's too dangerous to go alone. ❤️

05/03/2026

If we want things to be different for them we gotta be different for them. 💕

fans

05/03/2026

Shadow work isn’t about loving your darkness.

It’s about understanding it so it stops running your life.

Your shadow isn’t evil.
It’s the part of you that was:
• ignored
• silenced
• shamed
• overwhelmed
• misunderstood
• abandoned
• scared
• defensive
• exhausted
It’s the version of you that learned survival before safety.

Shadow work is simply saying:
“I see you.
I understand why you exist. I’m bringing you into the light so you can heal.”

That’s it.
Not theatrics.
Not aesthetic darkness.
Not “I’m just chaotic.”
Not cosmic punishment.
Not spiritual superiority.

Just awareness.
Just accountability.
Just integration.

Shadow work is not:
• glorifying your “dark side”
• believing you’re broken
• romanticizing self-destruction
• weaponizing trauma
• punishing yourself
• turning pain into an identity
That’s distortion.

Real shadow work looks like:
• noticing your triggers before they control you
• recognizing patterns you keep repeating
• understanding your defense mechanisms
• taking responsibility for your reactions
• healing what you’ve been avoiding
• choosing differently in real time

It means you stop:
• numbing
• projecting
• exploding
• withdrawing
• self-sabotaging
…and start asking: “What is this reaction trying to protect?”
That question changes everything.
Because shadow work isn’t about becoming someone new.

It’s about becoming whole.

You are not here to purge parts of yourself.
You are here to understand them.
You are not here to fight your darkness.
You are here to integrate what was abandoned.

That’s the real level-up:
• Meeting yourself with radical honesty instead of spiritual bypassing.
• Healing without pretending.
• Growth without performance.
• Wholeness without shame.
That’s power.