• I am healing and feeling
• I am healing and feeling
• I am healing and feeling
• I am healing and feeling
• I am healing and feeling

I always knew there was something wrong with me; I just didn’t know what it was. I wore an invisible cloak of dis-ease. I reeked of incompetence and inferiority. Everywhere I went, a little rain cloud hovered over me like in a Sunday morning cartoon strip. I was powerless. I didn’t deserve to exist, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was saturated in the first step of recovery before I even knew it was necessary. My entire life had been spent whirling in the cyclone of powerlessness and unmanageability. I didn’t drink much. I didn’t smoke or do drugs. I was a good Christian, until I wasn’t. But I was able to fast and pray. I read my bible. I won “sword drills” and bible trivia games. My elder sisters were rebellious, but I was the good kid. I was pleasant and quiet. I sat with the adults at the big people table soaking in their conversations with my large, inquisitive, baby blue eyes. I couldn’t figure out went so horribly awry. I spent decades in survival mode, begging God to have mercy on me and just take me home already. Little did I know that I first had to endure the tests and somehow persevere through the moanies before the two could merge into a testimony through which others could also begin to heal.

• I am young. I am strong. I am confident, and I am love
• I am young. I am strong. I am confident, and I am love
• I am young. I am strong. I am confident, and I am love
• I am young. I am strong. I am confident, and I am love
• I am young. I am strong. I am confident, and I am love

Where it all began. This string of affirmations changed my life forever. I didn’t even realize what was happening. It wasn’t intentional. In my mind, I was just trying to push myself; I was trying to just keep running. I was training for a marathon, and I needed all the help I could get. Nine years earlier, I attended a small group that was a part of my church. We were working through these small booklets filled with questions and thoughts to ponder. One page had a line upon which we were to write down a ten-year goal. As I had no goals at the time, I wrote down the first thing that popped into my head. Once it was on paper, there was no going back. I didn’t listen to music while I ran. I needed the time to be filled with silence, or, rather, the slow, rhythmic plodding of my feet hitting the pavement. It was meditative. It was restorative. It often felt like death as I pushed my body beyond its prior known limitations. It was exactly the death I needed to begin my journey beyond my invisible addiction onto the new path of recovery.

• I am happy, joyous, and free
• I am happy, joyous, and free
• I am happy, joyous, and free
• I am happy, joyous, and fee
• I am happy, joyous, and free

On mornings like this, joy is the enemy because I just don’t have the energy. My body weighs a thousand pounds. My right arm is cramping from attempting to write old-school style with pen and paper. I’m suddenly grateful that I don’t ever have to attempt writing with chalk. Just the thought makes my entire being skeeve. Oh, to be happy, joyous, and free. In recovery, I learned HOW to be happy: Honest, Open, and Willing. It’s simple enough, but it certainly isn’t easy. Though, it is at least achievable. Society teaches us that the only thing we need to be happy is more, the ever-elusive more, which is a beautifully cloaked lie. Personally, I don’t really want to have more. It’s hard enough to keep up with what I have already. Except for shoes and dresses; they’re so pretty, alluring, and my downfall. A simple life with good friends, singing and playing card games, is how I was raised and is the life for which I yearn. The more honest I am with myself, and with others, about the true desires of my heart, the more likely I am to see them come to pass.

• I am more precious than a pearl
• I am more precious than a pearl
• I am more precious than a pearl
• I am more precious than a pearl
• I am more precious than a pearl

Any time I begin to question my personal worth and value, it’s time for me to examine what I’ve been putting out into the world. A genuine pearl is amazing because it’s spent years forming inside of a protective shell, the oyster, adding one thin layer of coating around a minor irritant until a beautiful sphere is formed. The same can be said for my authentic personality. I’ve spent decades forming the person I’ve become within my protective shell, my body, adding one thin layer after another of translucent luster until my life glows from the radiance within. And yet, not all pearls are authentic. Most pearls are produced in a lab, made into perfect uniform balls, or into whichever size, shape, and color the consumer desires. These pearls are much less expensive, i.e., much less valuable, because they’re not unique. They’re a quick fix, a cheap imitation of the original. So, when I begin to feel as though I have no worth or value, I know it’s because I’ve not been my authentic self. I’ve been hiding the imperfections that prove my identity, and those are the gifts that make each of us precious beyond comparison.

• I am salt and light in a dark and dying world
• I am salt and light in a dark and dying world
• I am salt and light in a dark and dying world
• I am salt and light in a dark and dying world
• I am salt and light in a dark and dying world

Conviction breaks my heart this morning as I read about the ancient city of Jerusalem. The city was full of religiosity and pretentious piety. Visiting the temple, offering sacrifices, and following the rules of the law served as justification for the Jews to ignore the social injustices occurring all around them. Prophets called for “repentance,” for the people to stop allowing systemic oppression of the poor, for the rich to change their ways, to give up their luxuries in order for the less fortunate to receive basic sustenance. There is no excuse sufficient enough to condone the enormous disparity in the inequal distribution of wealth, then or now. The powerful had no compassion for the needs of the disabled or the disadvantaged. It’s been thousands of years since the Babylonian exile; and yet, the conditions of human society are still exactly the same. I weep for the hard-hearted and for those who are exploited. I’m not a socialist or a communist. I don’t believe everyone should enjoy the same benefits regardless of their efforts. I do, however, want to encourage goodness, gratitude, and generosity. I do desire to attain the capacity within my own heart to hold myself to a higher standard of giving and receiving with open hands as a channel of grace and healing. I do aspire to be salt and light within my sphere of influence to the best of my ability. To shine and to flow are the extent of my calling, and obedience to these are the greatest reward for which I could ever hope to discover.

• My victories are worth celebrating
• My victories are worth celebrating
• My victories are worth celebrating
• My victories are worth celebrating
• My victories are worth celebrating

Hiding. It has to stop. Hiding behind failure and inadequacy is habitual; it’s where I feel safe. Unknown, unseen, unloved hurts, but it hurts less than the arrows of judgment and criticism. And yet, I’m tired of playing small. The isolation is suffocating. Stepping out of the shadows of past shame is scary; it’s frightening as heck. Still, my heart longs for connection, yearns for understanding. Can anyone understand? Does anyone else know how hard it is to speak when no one has ever listened? The prophets of old spoke wise words that fell on deaf ears, or worse. The ground soaked in their blood because the people didn’t want to hear what they had to say. I don’t want to speak words that merely tell people what they want to hear. My work is to speak truth, speak love, and speak life. Let others throw stones. I’ll celebrate with choirs of angels at each step forward I take. If I don’t celebrate my victories, no one else is likely to. Conviction is a gift I no longer have the privilege to refuse.

• 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.