When I recount the patterns of my life I wonder if fear and stagnation passed to me prenatally. How else can I explain this dulled ache in my gut since I can remember that anchored my feet for decades as if complacency and mediocrity were inscribed in my heels? Generational trauma is not just tied to our socialization. So the same cord that nourished me could very well have poisoned me. And perhaps I’ve been a living corpse masquerading as bountiful and alive; full of promise, charisma and potential when underneath there was just this fraud of a soul. But no more.
Even in this most tenuous period, perhaps in my entire life, certainly the most unsure I’ve been in my adult existence, I am free. Free? From what? From who? I am freed from my former self. Free from the lies that tried to dictate my demise. I am running wildly, in full stride from the pessimistic, doubtful, ashamed, broken, constrained and afraid She Couldn’t. I’ve dispelled the myth of the dilapidated She Won’t. In this sobering moment I embrace and fully welcome my I Am.
I am many things. My complexity and contradictions abound. It has helped my constant successful defiance of great adversity. Still, I’ve needed proof that I deserve the right to be happy. Struggle and pain became my markers for excellence. I diminished my truth and purpose in this way and wasn’t even aware of it. Real talk, how often have you apologized for just existing? But no more. Though I’ve accomplished so much, my worth is not defined by what I do, where I go or what I’ve acquired. I abided so long in the fight that I have struggled to dwell in the ease of the victory. The glory of the stillness. Of the just being. Right now, though it’s a tender place, I am reminded that I am entitled to greatness. My birthright is wholeness regardless of the shards that have tried to manifest brokenness. I belong because I am right where I’m supposed to be. I am here because I am. God is and so am I. And today that is enough. Because I am, I will. Because I am, I have. I am enough. I am free. I Am.
Come, breathe openness into your lives with me. Expand the certainty of your next level by speaking it into existence and constrict apathy and imprisoning silence. Let’s get free! When we are free we are connected. When we are connected we are whole. We are so we will. We just are, and that is perfection all by itself.
My father admitted to me before he died that he didn’t think I’d make it when I was a child because of who he and my mother were, or who he had tricked himself into believing they were, where we dwelled and what we didn’t have. How powerful a fallacy to prophesy over your child! Someone lied to him and so he spoke that same garbage to me. It’s one of the many things that set me on a melancholic path because I subconsciously believed, until two weeks ago, that I wouldn’t “make it”. But no more. My father was and so I am. And today that is glorious. Tomorrow it’ll be the same.
This rainy NY evening I sat on the beach and watched the waves jump into perfect alignment between the sky and the sand. It’s always a reminder to accept what is, where and who I am – unfiltered and always evolving. Nature tells me the story of balance and ubiquitousness. Since we are human, natural, made of matter and spirit, our purpose is to be in harmony with all that is in and around us. I am not naive to believe that pain and discord won’t disrupt me as it’s definitely jacking me up even as I write. But freedom is still mine and yours. Allow this truth to help you ease out regret and usher in acceptance. Get free. Remain open. Reconnect to yourself or meet her for the first time. She’s beautiful.