I AM…
The two most powerful words in the universe- that’s my answer when people ask why I have, I am tattooed on my ankle.
Affirmations get a bad rep- you think Live, Laugh, Love. I decorated my house with them anyway and got it inked permanently. I believed and I didn’t. There have always been opposing forces. This voice in my head that campaigns against all of my woo woo ways. “She’s a fraud” Not until recently have I actually been slow enough, present enough to really listen to that voice. To see the two opposing forces so clearly- to understand that one is not really me.
I was explaining to my energy healer that me and my family have anxiety and depression- I said- “we have depression” and she responded, "I am curious you say, “we have depression” do you really believe that?” After some defending of my belief that it is true, we got down to the point: Does that word really belong to me or am I carrying it for someone else?
I’ve never thought about the idea of my sovereignty until a few weeks ago. The fact is,I have been living my life for other people, in constant desire to please, to be accepted, to fit into an imaginative standard.
What if I chose a new imagination, my imagination- Sonya Rene Taylor suggests. An imagination where affirmations work, where I can reprogram my mind, where I can be happy and at peace.
My therapist gave me Mary Oliver’s poem the journey a year or so ago. “ But little by little, as you left their voice behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do --determined to save the only life that you could save.” I took it very literally as there were people I literally had to leave behind in order to save myself. I didn’t realize yet that the cry, “mend my life” lived within me.
As a child we live to please our parents because that's our survival. And you can argue that we continue to live to please these imaginative standards because that’s survival, acceptance, success in the patriarchy. It makes sense.
Sovereignty is freedom. It’s loves new beginning. It’s letting go of all the old that’s not serving me and finding that soul within that has been paved over by everyone else’s needs and agenda.
And just like that “I AM” becomes even more powerful - who am I today? Who am I without the other voices? It’s time to feel that and know that. And it’s time to start believing- these simple sentences that have glittered my house over the years and eventually got tattooed on myself- they brought me here. I finally started to believe in myself, in the work enough to listen, to explore, and to heal. I understand why they get a bad rep though- it’s easy to seem like a fraud. Living in the light of the affirmation you put on that wall doesn’t just happen. It’s a moment to moment choice. It’s rewiring your brain to believe something new. And it’s simply part of the work.
