About you
Image shows a piece of artwork made by Meera. The text reads: “what are the lies that made you believe you’re a Broken Thing in need of fixing?”
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Experiences of marginalization
You feel the shame, humiliation, and anger at being just another victim of prejudice, and at the same time, there's the nagging worry that maybe... you're just no good.
| -Nina Simone |
The hardest thing about walking through this world as a forcibly marginalized person…is trying to hold on to a deep sense of self in a world that continually works to erode it.
We question our own reality.
We struggle to reconcile our compassion with our rage.
We strive to remember our own beauty, even as we internalize the poisons of our oppression, and too often oppress ourselves.
We wonder whether we know ourselves at all, or if we’ve never had a chance to be our true selves.
And sometimes we feel shame about the ways we’ve been forced to silence our own voices.
We search for a sense of true belonging.
And yes, we are immeasurably resilient - but it’s effing hard to carry all that, and still believe in our self-liberation.
You deserve to know yourself deeply.
You deserve to be whole.
You deserve to be free.
My People (all of you.)
We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings.
| Audre Lorde |
You are each your own person - and I can’t wait to meet you. But there are some things that most of my people have in common:
You’re empathetic and self-reflective. You think deeply about yourself and the world.
You have learned how survive in an unjust world, but sometimes in your quest to survive, you’ve internalized messages that hurt. A lot.
You’re capable and competent in the areas that you choose to put your attention and skill, but you also judge and mistrust parts of yourself.
You have a penchant for overthinking things.
You try your best to make intentional choices.
You’ve Been Through Some Shit and come out the other side because you’re damn resilient.
Sometimes you’re a little too focused on being resilient, and you forget to make room to be a Regular Human Person.
You’re generous. Great at giving and taking care of others. Not always so great at receiving and accepting compassion for yourself.
You tend towards self-critical. You can write me a 70-part list of your "areas for improvement.” You call this habit accountability.
You like to learn, you are ever-curious about ways to evolve, and you will look at me like I have 14 heads when I tell you to do less instead of more.
Do you want me to take an assessment? Do you need me to do some prep work? You’ll ask.
Nope! I’ll cheerily reply. You are all we need.
You won’t believe that at first.
And then you will.
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