{*Did you know you can write on Elephant? Here’s how—big changes: How to Write & Make Money or at least Be of Benefit on Elephant. ~ Waylon}
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For a while, I’ve traveled against the grain of what I’ve understood to be this thing called me—a disremembered and unaccounted for soul, lost in humanity’s adrift.
On closer examination, it’s clear: I have been on an expedition back to me.
The countless lives I’ve passed through, the familiar reenactments of home in places not my own, were not just about survival. I, now, view them as my spirit’s need to lead me to express goodwill, love, and grace. All of it is me. By accepting the call to become acquainted with the possibility of my own benevolence, I no longer feel the desperation of disconnection. Now, I see my life as an invitation to fall in love with being me.
What Do You Need to Do to Fall in Love with the Experience of Being You?
This question has become my guiding light. It calls me to live each day with the intention of being in love with myself, and it asks the same of you. How would you live differently if your purpose was to cherish the experience of being you?
On this sojourn of learning to know myself, I’m moving in a direction that feels aligned with my core identity, a path worthy of the skin I am in and the air I breathe. To recognize that I am—actually—good enough, to feel the sinew of belonging wrap itself around every hurt cell in my body reminding me of how much I matter, have always mattered.
This is the transformation that happens when you challenge the version of yourself that the world handed you and instead embrace the truth of who you are.
To Live From a Hijacked Sense of Identity is No Way to Live
When I was quite young, I knew that if I stayed where I was, I wouldn’t make it out of childhood whole. Innocently, I believed that if God so loved the world, maybe I, too, could belong to a world where love was generous and understanding. This was the beginning of my love affair with the word believe.
Everything I’ve accomplished has come from the power of this word—believe. Its etymology, rooted in love, is no accident. To believe is to love. To believe in yourself is an act of love.
Pay Attention to Strangers Today
On March 2, 2001, I had a dream. A man followed me, pleading with me to recognize him, but I refused. When I woke, a voice said, “Pay attention to strangers today.”
Later, with my schedule unexpectedly cleared, I boarded a BART train in mid-town San Francisco. At my stop, a man walked by—a stranger, yet someone I immediately recognized. “Hey, you…” I called after him. In that moment, I realized this man was my father.
Though he didn’t remember me, I carried the burden of remembering him. I wanted something mystical to happen for all the hope I’d carried, for him to see me, and want me, for being a good girl who didn’t complain about his estrangement, but he didn’t. And that’s when I decided: I wouldn’t take this out on myself. Ever again.
What Does Loving Yourself Look Like?
In the aftermath of that encounter, I didn’t turn to self-harm, shopping, or food to numb the pain. Instead, I grabbed a pencil and a magazine and began writing into its frayed edges in a circular manner toward the center of the page.
As I wrote, I came face-to-face with the truth of what I believed about me, that I was “dangerous,” that I was somehow “unfit” to get myself through my life. I kept the pencil moving, allowed the terror to release its hold on me. The voice that emerged on the page was raw, real, and deeply familiar—it was my own voice, colloquial to my Southern roots, a Texas drawl peppered with want and longing and the desire of a young girl who understood what it was to lose her childhood to adulthood way before her time. A voice untethered from the need to perform or conform.
I believed in the story that voice had to tell.
Meet Me at the Intersection of Belief and Beloved
And so, I invite you: meet me at the intersection of belief and beloved, where trusting in who you are dances with the love you deserve.
To fall in love with the experience of being you, start by believing in the sacredness of your own becoming.
Let go of the doubt that clings to past mistakes and hold your heart tenderly, as the beloved does.
Let your breath be a reminder of the love that flows through you—steadfast, unwavering, and ever-present.
For it is not perfection that calls us home, but the deep knowing that believing in oneself is to be love, and to be love is to be beloved.
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