You Are Who You Need To Be

they said i should take a deep breath

so i can feel a little less anxious

um okay

okay i’m so i’m very used to speaking in

front of

a camera so this is really new for me

and this

is ugly the scariest thing i’m doing

this year

but um

[Applause]

thank you so much for being here and um

i’m your first speaker

all right okay

okay so here it goes

okay my name is val many of you would

know me better as

belliwali and the title of my sharing

today is

who you are who you need to be

so you are who you need to be basically

in this point in time

and where you are in life so the meaning

of you

if we are thinking about it that way it

means your identity

and it also means who you are so when i

talk about who i am

i think the best part for me to start is

childhood

so that’s me i still like stuffed toys a

lot

um and i was born into a very very

loving family

and i was the only child till right

about six years old

so then came along my brother so

when i was six i became a big sister so

basically i knew

who i should be and growing up in an

asian family

they tell you so many things about you

know

what it makes to be a good sister a

successful you know

daughter so i’m sure some of you can

relate

in order to be successful you should be

a doctor a lawyer take ballet excel

while in school

and just be a good example and be a good

sister

so that was exactly who i thought i

should be

so let’s move on to when i started work

so when i started work i started work as

a blogger

and an influencer and back then it was

not a proper job

so i decided okay if it’s not a proper

job

i would work full time so i’ll juggle

this at the side

so i work two full-time jobs and in

order to feel like you know i was

successful and i was the best version of

myself

i thought i should be someone that

excelled even further so i became an

entrepreneur

so working two full-time jobs i started

my own business

and i thought that i was well on my way

to becoming

the most perfect version of what

a successful human would be

and then came this

so i’ll call this part well in love

so i guess you know when you’re in love

there are couple of things that

can ruin someone’s life and one of that

happened to me

so when i was in love the person i loved

took my dignity and then desecrated it

across the whole

internet so this was what came next

so instead of you know trying so hard

and spending so much of my life trying

to fit into that mode

of who i thought i should be i was

instead told who i was

so basically who i was was a i

shouldn’t be alive

i should probably disappear from this

earth

and i guess you know they say that if

you work on social media and you have

like your career on social media

what you should be quite used to is just

being cyberbullied

and to be used to you know this love

like

hate comments i think this kind of took

it to another level

and after struggling so hard

to fit in into this perfect mode of what

i thought i should be and now i was told

who i was

and now i felt like i did not belong

anywhere

so instead what i did next

was who i needed to be for myself so who

i needed to be for myself

was to be there for me and to reach out

for help

so i reached out for help i leaned on my

friends and family

i unfollowed every single one on social

media and i stood

as far away from social media as i could

unless it’s for work

and it’s only with my friends and family

that i’m able to stand here today

and i’m able to speak to you guys years

on

and this

i would say was one of the darkest

periods of my life

um i didn’t know what to do but i knew

that i needed to survive and in order to

survive you need to feel safe and in

order to feel safe you need to reach out

for help

even if you don’t want to reach out for

help even if you really wanted to be

alone

so then a lot of messages came

in you know there were a lot of good

surrounding me across the years

there were people you know sending me

like written messages or messages online

so it’s not all that bad you know

through the darkness there’s

still a lot a lot of good

and so now i’m speaking to you three

years on

and what i want to say

is that when i look into the mirror i’m

still someone

that’s filled with a lot of joy

um a lot of potential a lot of tenacity

and there’s so much more i want to do

but a big part of me

is also shame fear and anxiety

but i think the important part is to

note

that all these friends of yours

shouldn’t coexist in harmony

and i think the truth about things is

that friends

don’t stay forever some friends stay

longer than the others

so i think that’s a heartening fact for

me to note and if there’s one thing

that i want you to take away from the

sharing is that

no one gets to define who you are except

you

and the meaning of you would constantly

change

but you are the one that’s in control of

that

and you are who you need to be at this

point in time

and that will change but as it changes

you are exactly where you have to be and

you gotta celebrate that

thank you

[Applause]

thank you that was very inspiring