• I am unique just like everyone else
• I am unique just like everyone else
• I am unique just like everyone else
• I am unique just like everyone else
• I am unique just like everyone else

There are many voices in the world today calling us to embrace diversity, to seek diversity even. But how do we begin to so much as tolerate diversity when uniformity is our primary means of self-defense? If I wear the same clothing style as everyone else in my peer group, I can fit in. If I can make my body size conform to a certain arbitrary standard, people will stop making fun of me or I’ll feel as though I’ve finally obtained some level of control over my life. If I just wasn’t so weird, so eccentric, so different, so unique (insert audible sigh here), then the pain would go away and I might be able to find a seat at the table. Diversity isn’t just a race thing or a gender thing or an age thing; it’s a people thing. The sense of security we think we’ll obtain once we’re finally able to squeeze ourselves into a cookie-cutter mold isn’t safe at all; it’s a prison. And I, for one, don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a straightjacket of homogeneity. I want to be free to love and to live fully as myself. And, if love is actually my goal, if I want to truly love my neighbor as myself, I need to start by loving myself, not in spite of my differences but because of them.

• I am capable and competent
• I am capable and competent
• I am capable and competent
• I am capable and competent
• I am capable and competent

Dang! This affirmation pierces me to the core. Me; the one who could never do anything right, the one who could never be good enough, the one who always needed someone else to do everything for me. I am capable and competent. I’m not self-sufficient and I hardly claim to be able to do everything myself, though my prideful self would surely love to do so. I still need to ask for help frequently. I still need to accept situations and circumstances over which I have no control. I still need to work to improve my skills and talents, but I DO have skills and talents. I’m not a complete buffoon. I am capable and competent. I’m not a disaster waiting to happen. I am capable and competent. I’ll probably never dance professionally, and I’ll probably always get chosen last for sports teams, with good reason. There are certain skills and talents I don’t have, and that’s okay. No one get to do everything. But right now, today, as a fellow human being upon the beautiful blue planet, I am capable and competent, and that is enough.

• I am unlimited
• I am unlimited
• I am unlimited
• I am unlimited
• I am unlimited

It may seem an absurd affirmation at first, especially for someone in recovery. Part of my serenity prayer is to accept the physical and mental limitations I have; we all have them. I’m the last person you want to have on your sports team, and I thank God every day that I was not required to take calculus during my undergrad coursework. And yet, repeating “I am unlimited” to myself opens up the field of possibility within me. My body feels lighter. My head feels clearer, and my brain feels sharpened. I actually begin to believe that anything is possible. I can do anything I set my mind to; it’s no longer merely a phrase I told my children when they were young and gullible. It’s true. It’s possible. If I want it badly enough, anything I’m willing to work at with all of my heart, mind, and strength can come to pass. I have the power of Love and Life flowing in me and through me, and I am unlimited because love knows no bounds.

• I am enough
• I am enough
• I am enough
• I am enough
• I am enough

After a three-month stint of homelessness, I finally landed a new job, moved into a two-bedroom apartment, and felt as though my life was finally getting back on track. My affirmations back then were “I can do this” and “I got this.” What I didn’t realize at the time was that no matter what I might have accomplished on the outside, it was all for not if not matched by what I believed about myself on the inside. Sure enough, three months later, I lost my job, lost the apartment, and the only track my life was on was the same old repeating pattern that resembled a country song. “I am enough” wasn’t even on the periphery of my subconscious. It would require several years of recovery and therapy before I could receive the revelation to think “I am enough,” longer to be able to say it, and I’m still working on trying to believe it.

• I am a good and faithful friend
• I am a good and faithful friend
• I am a good and faithful friend
• I am a good and faithful friend
• I am a good and faithful friend

There tends to be a pretty good reason for isolation: illness, rejection, global pandemic. Life inevitably grants us time and opportunity for rest, recovery, and remembrance. However, when isolation becomes a lifestyle, it causes more pain than it prevents. My experience of abandonment as a child locked me away behind thick walls of apathy and anger. No one ever wanted to be my friend because I was a toxic person. My life was an emotional minefield, a swamp of sorrows with the stench of sulfur settled heavily in the air. At the time, I had no idea what was wrong with me. It turns out, I had my head so far up my own bottom, I was choking on it. Subsequently, I never learned how to be a good and faithful friend. I was too busy licking my wounds and feeling sorry for myself to be truly present for anyone else. Presence, it seems, is the most precious gift we can offer another person. Bearing witness to one another and allowing ourselves to be seen requires courage and relying on a power greater than ourselves. I know I sure don’t have the strength to be seen – not my nasty, oozing, messy wasteland of a self. And yet, grace is sufficient even for me. There’s nothing more I need to learn. I am a good and faithful friend today because I am willing to show up as my true, imperfect, stinking self in spite of my past injuries and current shame.

• I am alive and breathing
• I am alive and breathing
• I am alive and breathing
• I am alive and breathing
• I am alive and breathing

Today is one of those days when I wake up ready to bite someone’s head off. All I want to do is chase down a chicken and stab it to death with a fork. I would never actually do that; we don’t have any chickens in the nearby vicinity, and a duck just wouldn’t be the same. What I would do is jump all over my husband’s case for dripping water on the dining room floor, for leaving the cupboard door open, for looking at me wrong or at all. But – as long as I’m still alive and breathing, I also have the ability to choose how to respond, how to greet my day with goodness and life in spite of my seething anger. I am breathing. I can take several deep breaths to send oxygen to a brain that is clearly in need. I am alive. I can choose to feel my anger and investigate what my anger is trying to tell me. My anger is often a signpost to unhealed grief. I can acknowledge the grief buried deep within my chest, which I can feel trying to escape through a tight throat and clenched jaw. I can sit with my grief for a moment. I can thank my grief for protecting future me from experiencing the same pain as younger me. I can choose how I need to respond today, in this moment, to feel my grief, and then, allow it to pass.

• I deserve to have my needs fully and adequately met
• I deserve to have my needs fully and adequately met
• I deserve to have my needs fully and adequately met
• I deserve to have my needs fully and adequately met
• I deserve to have my needs fully and adequately met

Knowing I was a wanted child offers me no consolation. My parents decided to have a third baby. I was born into an Eden of family, church, and friends. However, as all good things must come to an end, our garden was torn apart when my parents separated. I suffered from what I refer to as “third child syndrome.” My elder siblings excluded me unless they had occasion for mockery or if they had desires that I could fill, such as running to the corner store to fetch a quart of ice cream. My amiable, eager to please personality was unable to recognize there was an option to say “no.” In my mind, I existed only to be of service to others. I had no voice, and I received no care in return. My broken, wounded family was a war zone where everyone was desperate to get their own needs met, and no one succeeded. After decades of believing I don’t deserve to have my needs met, I’ve come to the realization that I was merely trying to get my needs met from the wrong source.

• I am making something good happen for myself
• I am making something good happen for myself
• I am making something good happen for myself
• I am making something good happen for myself
• I am making something good happen for myself

In my experience, every time I try to do something good, meaningful, or helpful, it ends up as a total disaster. I’m uncoordinated. I’m weak and fragile. I also have ADHD, which, for me, manifests as an inability to pay attention unless I’m hyper-focused on minor details. My body is also as spastic as my mind. I knock things over like a cat in a china cupboard. I bonk into stationary items as if they jumped out to bite me. And my hands have a mind of their own. They spontaneously release their grip at the most inopportune times; they venture into space without the assistance of my eyeballs, and they refuse to do as they’re told like a spoiled toddler. They are rebellious twins, which is just great for a writer. My intimate knowledge of all the ways in which I struggle and fall horrifically short of qualified or capable of doing anything right or making anything good happen for myself also makes me that much more aware of how utterly dependent I am upon grace.

• I am a successful writer
• I am a successful writer
• I am a successful writer
• I am a successful writer
• I am a successful writer

I am not a loser just because I don’t know how to set up my own website. I am not an idiot just because I have yet to figure out how to edit this old blog I set up while in school five years ago. I am not horrible at living in reality simply because I’ve been unemployed and “working” as a student for, well, nearly my entire life. Yes, I’m an adult with no income and zero proof of my ability to earn money as a writer, but I can decide to believe that I can be a successful writer if I continue to apply myself. I am writing on my blog today; therefore, I am a successful writer today whether anyone else ever happens to agree.

I have to keep reminding myself that I am worthy of love and belonging because it’s so much easier to believe that I don’t deserve it. It’s easier to think that no one likes me and that I’ll never be able to fit in. It’s easier to wallow in self-pity and to stay stuck in my fear than it is to embrace my own worth and value as a radiant human being because if I shine, then my shadow will also be visible. I can say “I am worthy of love and belonging,” but am I willing to be brave enough to believe it?