The Empowered Self

I

May be

A ball of fire

That no one can control or contain

But I am me

And I deserve

To exist as I am

I may not be known to you

Understood by you

Accepted by you

Validated by you

But I am known

And I am understood

And I am accepted

And I am validated

Just as I am

My existence has a place on earth

My worth

My value

My perspective

My contribution

I have a place;

To grow up

Feeling out of place

Misunderstood

And unaccepted

Does something to you

You become the mess that others perceive you as

I became

The lack

That I felt from others

But none of that

Is who I am

And never again

Will I allow

Mis-conceptions

And mis-perceptions

Dictate my path

My path is mine and mine alone

Nobody

Will ever know

What's best for you

Better

Than you

Safe Home

I was told my whole life that it was my fault for not communicating

I know now that as a child 

I deserved to be seen 

And that words were never ever going to be enough

The more words I found, the more they were twisted against me

So now I understand manipulation well

I value words less

I know them too well

I’m tired of them

Exhausted by narratives and explanations and twisting and turning a person into how well they can form the right argument

I am so tired of human relations

My heart has always been bigger than my body so now I’ve succumbed and surrendered to it

My brain has been trained well but now I marry it with my heart so that my body can breathe

And breath feels so good in a body that can feel

I’ve found a safe home inside myself

And I don’t expect anyone to understand

But I'm glad I found it

I'm glad to have found a place to call home

External Energies

Other people's energies

Flow into my reality

People I once knew

But don't anymore

People I left behind

Unapologetically

People who's narratives and views of me

May not be so pleasing

They flow into my field of energy

And I honor them

Each and every one

Every narrative they could be thinking of me

I honor

And send back to them

They do not know me

Not anymore

We are not the people we were in struggle

People may condemn you for how you've been

But if they do

I know

They don't love me

They don't see me

I've been causing waves since the day I was born

I wanted 

So desperately

To be quiet

And unassuming

But I wasn't

So now

I feel safe and secure

In my own company

In my own little world I've created for myself

Built on past mistakes

And ghosts of who I've been

Surrounded

Lifted up

By the purest forms of love I've ever known

For once in my life I know

For sure

I am loved

And thought of

And considered

And sought after

I changed my whole world

Just

So I could feel safe

First

And then discover what else there is

The safer I feel

The stronger I feel

The more capable I feel

The more I discover

Who I really am

Underneath the chaos and struggle and fear and fighting

I'm not any of those things

Not when I decide

I don't want to be

I thought I needed

Things outside of myself

But I didn't

All I needed

All I was ever looking for

Was love and support

A safe place to land

And when I finally did

When I finally

Created what I wanted for myself

I began to heal

At rates and levels I never did before

I was finally free

To love myself

To cater to myself

The way I needed it

The way no one else could ever understand

In ways I could never find a way to express

Or even understand, myself

People expect so much

Assume so much

Blame so much

And I've learned

To let them

Let them go and let them be and wish them well

For I know

We all have demons

Every single one of us

And no matter how they see me

They are not mine to contend with 

My power

Lies in contending with my own self

So I let them flow into my reality

And let them go right back again

We are all human

And healing has taught me

To allow

The judgements

The narratives

The assumptions

Healing has taught me

To allow

Being misjudged and misunderstood 

I can't spend my life

Explaining myself

I came here to live

And anyone who would condemn me

Or judge me

Or make assumptions about me

Does not need a seat at my table

Come to me correct

Or do not come at all

Overwhelming Gratitude

Sometimes

I try to lessen

The amount of gratitude I express

Because I imagine

People must find it annoying

It's just that

I've felt so bad

For most of my life

That when I reflect

On what I've been through

Where I've been

And how hard I've worked on myself

On learning a new way of being

On continuously

And tirelessly

Calling in more of what I want

On learning what it really means

To love myself

On feeling entirely new

In mind, body and spirit

I just can't help

But feel overcome

And overwhelmed

With enormous gratitude

It is so large

It is hard to contain within my being

My whole life

I felt burdened

By the idea of privilege

I suffered from depression

Because I thought I was privileged

And I also felt

Entirely useless

Valueless

A waste of space and opportunity

Privilege now has become a grey area for me

I see where I am privileged in the eyes of society

But underprivileged when it came to what I deserved as a child

And an adolescent

And a young adult

I was failed

Miserably

To the point where I didn't know how to cope

I didn't want to live

Life felt like an enormous burden

I was forced to carry

Yet I was told

I was privileged

To be alive

I didn't want to be

I never wanted to be

But I felt like

I had to be

And then I had a child

And all notions of ending it

Went out the window

Because in an instant

I became the world

To another being

The whole world

And now I recognize 

That this child

Is privileged

To have me

I will go to bat for this child

In ways I never would for myself

And it makes me question

Why

I stand up for her and realize

I should've loved myself this much

All along

The love I give to her is the love I always wanted

And didn't think I was worthy of 

But now

She reflects it back to me

Effortlessly

Effortlessly

Like I can turn dust into gold

And she makes me

Want to

Live up to the image she sees

I bore a love that was always inside me

And now it grows me

And teaches me

How I should've been loved

All along

And now I love myself

So that I can keep loving her

The way she deserves

Because she deserves the world

And all my wounds gather together

Showing me

They made me

This deep, expansive, experience of a human being

Flawed, anxious and wounded

But sensitive and wise and profoundly empathic

I read people

I know people

Better than I want to

And because of my daughter

I keep my distance

I focus on love and gratitude

And creating the life I want

The best possible life I can

For both of us

She inspires me

To explore the limits of possibility

Because I know

She's capable of anything

Which means

So am I

A Student Of Love

The more you fight

For what you believe to be right

The more people will fight against you

I'm learning

To let go more

And trust

People think if you change your energy

If you do better

People will do better by you

But I don't think that's how it works

The more I try to do better

The more I'm met with past dynamics

People trying to relate to me based on how I was

How I've been

Rather than who I am now

And that has a way of pulling you back

To places you don't want to be in anymore

Change is hard and it takes time

And patience

And determination

And perseverance

So when I find myself spiraling

To places I don't want to be in

I've learned to let go

I don't have to prove myself to anyone

For the truth

Reveals itself

Always

When we stop holding so tightly to it

It's been a rocky road

Trying to find my voice

In a world

That doesn't value it

But I've learned

That I'm smart

And I'm capable

And I'm wise

And I no longer need to fight to be heard

When we make peace with ourselves

Our truths don't need to be forced

They can become quiet and sure

You may not agree with me

But that won't change what I know to be true

And what I know is right

There is a quiet strength in knowing yourself

Knowing your worth

We live in a society that expects and demands

That we betray ourselves

So it feels like a risk

To say "no"

But we're doing it

More and more of us all the time

Some of us were bred to be compassionate and understanding

But when we turn that love on ourselves

We become something different

I can love you

And love myself

At the same time

Love is not self-betrayal

Love is not revenge

Love is not competition

Love is love is love is love

It holds all people

All truths

All conflict

Within its vastness 

Love is far too big for us to understand

So that's why I'm learning

To surrender

And let it show me

A better way

Injustice

It is wild to me

How distorted

People's perceptions can become

Of what is real

Of the own roles they play

In their own realities

It is wild to me

That no matter how you may give others the benefit of the doubt

In turn

They are weaving stories about you

Congratulating themselves 

For questioning those stories

But ultimately

Believing them

I have learned

That "being the bigger person"

Has nothing to do with letting things slide

But rather

Sticking up for yourself

When others would readily walk over you

I find myself

Fighting for equality

When others are fighting to take more than their fair share

We are not the same

The storms we find ourselves in are our own

We can't avoid them

We can only reflect on how we want to participate

I can only reflect on who I want to be

Despite the cold world we live in

The cold people who will bite at your character

Without knowing you

This world prepared me

Taught me

That while I can be soft and amenable 

I also have to be willing

To fight for myself

For rights

That no one should have to fight for

That's the sad reality we've been born into

But I think I'm learning 

To own it

To own whatever fight is mine

To own my own sovereignty 

My own way of being

So that when others come for me

I know how to stand tall

In my own knowing

In my own assurance

That I have just as much a right to be here

As anyone

Change

It's nice

To feel wanted

My whole life

I felt like a burden

And as I grow and change

All the unwanted feelings fall away

And I find myself

Surrounded

Supported

In ways I've never felt before

It was in me

In my healing

People hate believing that they attract what's in their lives

But it's the only thing that makes sense to me

While there are so many things we don't deserve

We're the ones who allow them

When I heal

I only allow what's good for me

Because I understand

I'm worthy

I was born worthy and I'll die worthy

And inbetween it's up to me

To decide what is worthy of me

What I'm worth

My own value

Feeling valueless brought me a world of pain

Pain I don't want anymore

To shed parts of yourself

Feels like losing yourself

Because you are

But what I think is beautiful

Is the simple fact

That every single day

We have the opportunity to recreate ourselves

If we allow others to dictate who we are

We'll never change

But if we let ourselves

Change will bring us everything we're looking for