Recently I was invited to be interviewed for an online Trans community summit entitled “You Are Enough: Love, Thrive, and Be A Trans Powerhouse!”
I cried (tears of joy, of course) when I received the email inviting me to be a part of this summit. I am an enthusiastic ally for anything that involves individuals being empowered to live as the most authentic versions of themselves. Part of my mission in this life and through my work is to help others live more peaceful, more fulfilling, and more authentic lives.
While the summit is still a few days away, my mind is swirling with thoughts on the topic of empowerment – what it means – why it matters – and why we ARE ENOUGH as we are, in our complete and most authentic versions of ourselves.
As someone who spent a lot of time throughout my life struggling with first understanding and then embodying who I was on the deeper levels within, I can identify with the feeling of squashing who I knew I was deep down inside and opting for a more “conventional” version of myself to share on the surface. Living that way for so long only made me feel worse and more disconnected from my own self – so much so that eventually looking in the mirror began to feel like looking at a stranger. Who was this person staring back at me? What had happened to the light hearted, loving, carefree version of her I once knew? Was this really what she had become? Was this how people in the world really lived? Denying who they truly were for the sake of perceived acceptance and false comfort? Would she continue to live this way? Denying her authentic self, maintaining the status quo and trudging through a mostly meaningless life?
It certainly wasn’t what she had envisioned for herself and her future when she was a late teen who was excited and enthusiastic about what she would create in her life and in the world.
Instead, in my late twenties I was presented with my Truth: I had lost myself completely. I had become consumed by everything outside of me. I numbly walked through my life. I had medical issues with no found cause, I couldn’t sleep, I was anxious and overwhelmed. I didn’t even know who I was anymore. My life had, at some point along the way, taken a wrong turn but I couldn’t even remember who I was before the turn. And worse, I wasn’t even sure how to find myself in there again.
But I began, slowly, to make changes.
With each day I began to repair the connection to myself; my own inner being; my beautiful soul. I began to seek out the activities I knew I liked before I lost myself. I changed my daily habits. I changed the food I put into my body. I began the journey back home to me. I began to love myself. I began to accept myself. I began to talk nicely to myself. I changed the way I viewed myself and the world and I kept making changes every time I made another discovery that felt like it wasn’t aligned with the Truth of who I was on the deeper levels, and I still do this today. I still observe myself. I still watch myself go through life. I still see how things feel to me and what needs to be adjusted, what needs to stay, and what needs to go, and what needs to be brought in. The connection I have with myself is the most powerful and most beautiful thing I have ever experienced in my lifetime. Because when we are fully connected to ourselves, when we fully love and accept ourselves, WE. CAN. DO. ANYTHING. Because we no longer need anyone else’s approval. We no longer need anyone else’s acceptance. We no longer need anyone else’s input. It’s not that we don’t have beautiful, meaningful relationships with others, because we do. But we do not give our power away to them. We hold our space for ourselves and eventually we hold our space for ourselves so well that we become a space holder for others until they can realize their own infinite power within.
And that’s what this summit is about. And that’s what empowerment is about. And that’s what being enough is about. And that is what living an authentic life is about. It is YOU, your MOST AUTHENTIC version of you, living YOUR life, as you wish to be living it, and holding the space for your own self so powerfully that you then begin to hold the space for others. It is creating this energy in the world so that not only you change, but the world changes. And it is the feeling that comes up from deep within when you are so connected with your own essence that nothing – and I literally mean nothing – on this beautiful Earth feels better than that. And it is the knowing that BECAUSE YOU EXIST you are deserving of love. You are deserving of peace. You are deserving of freedom. You are deserving of joy. You are deserving of living the life that YOU want to be living for YOU and not for anyone else.
You empower you. You stand by you. You strengthen you. You love you. You accept you. You appreciate you. You care for you. You ARE you, whatever you looks like to YOU.
And then a funny thing usually happens to us when we begin to really love and fully accept and appreciate ourselves. Other people and the world around us start giving it to us too, ironically, when we no longer need them to. When we’ve fully released the attachment to wanting others to understand or to love or to accept us, that’s exactly when they seem to shift and come along.
Because on the much deeper levels of it all the world is just a reflection of you and how you feel about you deep within. So to change the world, all we need to do is change ourselves. And the rest just magically falls into place. The people around us treat us differently and if they don’t, it no longer affects us. New people come into our lives. New opportunities come into our lives. We see ourselves make new, empowered choices. We see ourselves give us what we have been searching for from the outside world all along. It’s almost too simple of a solution, so we don’t believe it, until we do it and we see for ourselves.
And while our efforts create our little world to change we inspire others to do the same and then the big world begins to change. It no longer needs to uphold to the old structure because the old structure is gone. This isn’t new; it’s in our history. It’s part of being a human. It’s part of the cycle of life. We are always in a state of change. What we sometimes forget as individuals and as a society is that we get to decide what that change looks like. It is not determined from outside of us; it is created from within us.
Start with self-love. Start with self-acceptance. Start with self-appreciation. Start with the beautiful human being that is looking back at you in the mirror every morning when you wake up. Tell this beautiful human being how much you love it. Tell it how important and special it is. Tell it how there is no one else on this entire planet who is exactly like it and how its life and its existence MATTERS. Tell it that it can choose to live its life however it wants to and express itself however it wants to. Tell it that you will always be there for it NO MATTER WHAT. Tell it that you love it unconditionally. Tell it that nothing else in this world means more to you. Because you, beautiful you, are the most important, most precious, most beautiful thing in your entire world. And when you begin to treat yourself in that way, your whole world changes. It all starts from within.
And if it’s too hard to love and accept and appreciate beautiful you and say these things to yourself in the mirror, then do it more.
Do it until it’s easy. Do it until you don’t even need to say it anymore because it BECOMES who you are within. Do it for you. Because you deserve you standing up for, holding space for, and loving every single beautiful part of beautiful you, in all your humanness, in all your mess, and in all your glory. Every single piece of you is beautiful. Every single piece of you is worthy of love. Every single piece of you is enough. Tell yourself this every day. Write it on post it notes and put them all over your house. Set alarms on your phone to remind yourself to take a moment for self-love. Tattoo it on your body. Do whatever it is you need to do for you to bring you fully home to you.
And in the moments when you don’t know what to do, ask yourself “What can I do in this moment to love myself?” Because when you love you everything changes. When you love you, the world changes. When you love you, you can do anything.
This world can be yours for the creating, but only if you rise up to create it. Rise up with love.
Create the life and the world you seek. You are worth it. YOU ARE ENOUGH. Believe it and so it is.
To sign up for the online summit “You Are Enough: Love, Thrive, and Be a Trans Powerhouse,” hosted by Myrrial Browning, click here.
About the Author: Erica Onofrio is owner of Soul to Soul, a center for healing, reiki & yoga located on the beautiful island of Ocean City, New Jersey, where she gives reiki & intuitive readings, teaches yoga & reiki trainings and various other classes.
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As always, I wish you the very best on your life journey.
Erica Onofrio