Can you Please Forgive Every Phase of You
There’s something hauntingly gentle about this image by Christine Owens.
A girl sits cross-legged, facing her reflection. On her shirt: “I love you.”
But when you look deeper into the infinite mirrors, the words start to shift ,soft requests ripple outward:
“And you.”
“And you.”
“And you.”
“Can you please forgive every phase of you?”
At first glance, it feels like she’s talking to someone else.
But then you realize, she’s been speaking to herself all along.
The Heart Speaks First
The “I love you” on her shirt feels like the whisper of a heart trying to reach a hesitant mind.
It’s the purest part of you. The part untouched by shame, timelines, pressure, or performance reminding the rest of you that love isn’t a transaction. It’s a truth.
A pledge.
A soft insistence.
“I love you,” says the heart.
“Even when you forgot how to. Even when you ran. Even when you outgrew someone else’s definition of good.”
That’s what real love looks like when it stops seeking permission, it just is.
The Mind Lags Behind
But the mind… the mind is slower.
It remembers the mistakes.
It replays the embarrassment, the missed chances, the should’ve known betters.
So the heart repeats itself, again and again:
“And you.”
“And you.”
“And you.”
“Please.”
“Can you forgive every phase of you?”
Every repetition in the artwork feels like another round of healing, another mirror you pass through on your way back home to yourself.
And the way she sits on the floor, cross-legged like a child… it reminds you that self-reflection often brings you back to the younger versions of yourself the ones who still need softness.
Every Phase Was Necessary
The version of you that stayed too long.
The one that didn’t speak up.
The one that loved deeply, even when it wasn’t safe.
The one that restarted her life when she thought she couldn’t.
The one who survived things she never told anyone about.
They were all chapters of the same story, the one that led you here.
Forgiving them doesn’t mean approving what happened.
It means seeing them through the eyes of grace instead of judgment.
Healing Is an Echo
Maybe the mirror repeats because the message has to travel through time, through every version of you that still needs to hear it.
Healing isn’t about fixing every version of you.
It’s about loving through them.
So the heart keeps whispering:
“I love you.”
“And you.”
“And you.”
“And you.”
“Can you please forgive every phase of you?”
And it will whisper as long as it takes until the message finally reaches the part of you that always felt unworthy of hearing it.
Closing Reflection
The image isn’t just art, it’s a prayer.
A conversation between your heart and your healing.
And maybe, the next time you stand in front of a mirror, you’ll feel it too
the quiet nudge to love yourself again, even when it feels undeserved…
even when you’re tired…
even when the holidays feel heavy.
Because somewhere deep within you, your heart is still trying.
Still reaching.
Still whispering…
“I love you.”
