You were born to thrive

Embracing True Identity and Letting Go of False Narratives

I can say this again and again about so many things when I look out into the world. That is what I'm talking about here in this newsletter and what it prompted me to do.

I occasionally still have to remind myself of what I am not here for, and when I let that go, it always opens up so many better possibilities.

This is how the birth of my children's book series, "Because I Am," came about. Sneak peek at the bottom of the cover of the first book.

Realizing your true purpose helps you let go of unnecessary distractions.

What are you not here for? What should you let go of to open up new possibilities?

Rejecting False Choices

So many times we look out into the world and they give us duality. I saw a meme recently about Trump and Biden that said something like, "I'd rather vote for a felon than a jackass."

I would rather do neither. I'm here to let go of someone else's life and choices, which are taking up more space and being more important in my life than the choices I make that directly influence me.

I didn't vote for either of those people running; in fact, I didn't vote at all. I haven’t for years. Yes I know for many people that is shocking, and even seems irresponsible. But I know what I am responsible for and it starts in my home and in my community where I can have a direct impact.

I'm comfortable with saying that I have left that whole political rat race. The choices they make do not impact my life—not now, not ever. For me, it is what I think about my immediate world and how I interact with it and those around me.

I’ve chosen a very direct way of approaching life, from homeschooling to health and being very hands-on in whatever community I live in.

Reject the false choices presented by the world.

Why let someone else's choices take precedence over your own?

Witnessing Harmful Influences

I remember when I heard about children mutilating their genitals and reproductive organs and their parents advocating for them to do this. They’re calling it “reassignment” surgery. It sounds so robotic, so impersonal, like repurposing the “trash” to turn it into treasure. Is this where we’re at now?

Getting reassigned?

Because you were supposedly a mistake that must be rectified?

As a parent, this really hurt me. As a parent, this should hurt anyone to be told you “grew a mistake” that needs to be “reassigned.” Yet there are parents bobbing their heads in agreement for the “sake” of their child.

When instead, a parent should have kept their child away from such programming to begin with by helping them know right from the start, how beautiful they are, because they are.

Hearing about the thousands of children this has happened to, the rebel in me wanted to get on my soapbox and go on a verbal rampage to “reassign” parents, teachers, doctors, governments, and social media “influencers” pushing this sick agenda on highly impressionable children at a highly vulnerable age.

But then I remembered: When you realize what you're here for, you let go of what you're not.

So I asked myself how could I add value to this space, and I heard the title of the book popped in: "I Am Beautiful Because I Am."

In this new phase of my life, I want to strive to address things that alarm me with more softness and beauty.

I don’t want to feed the narrative, even as right as it feels sometimes.

I admit, I, too, have been looking out into the world and reacting to it in ways that didn't feel good and weren't valuable to me or others.

Instead of engaging with the world in a reactive manner, I want to respond in ways that feel good, are aligned with my purpose and give a better promise we can feel good about.

To do that, I need to let go of what I'm not here for.

When I manage to do that, even if I'm better at it some days than others, beautiful things arise—like "I Am Beautiful Because I Am" and all the other books that have followed.

That is how "I Am Beautiful Because I Am" was born. When I remind myself that I have to let go of what I am not here to do, I make better choices.

I am not here to argue.

I'm not here to fight against what I don’t want.

I’m not here to live the anti-life.

I want to see a world where people know they are beautiful because they are and live from that viewpoint.

How do I do that? In this round, by writing.

I'm writing for children, to be read to them by adults, who can also use the reminder.

I want children to know how they can manifest beauty throughout their day and how they can spread that beauty around the world as a ripple effect.

This mission feels more worthy than arguing.

Children come in ready for the world.

They don’t naturally look in the mirror and see something that needs to be fixed, erased, or “reassigned.”

They come in ready to dig into life, full on with everything they’ve got.

True power comes from embracing and understanding one's authentic self.

I know we can all do something to foster environments that supports true self-acceptance and growth?

So while for the most part I’ve abstained from arguing in the way my immediate reflex wants to, I will not hold back in my view because of one key thing:

You are here for greater things than playing around with your body.

We are all given a body for a reason—for what we do in the body, not to the body.

I know there’s a whole movement of people trying to “transcend the body,” and that is still another version of “I’m not good enough as I was created, let me find an acceptable escape.”

So I would say It's about what we can do with the body, not in offense or even defense of the body, that makes life worth living.

This is what this children’s picture book “I Am Beautiful, Because I Am” is all about.

Our bodies are meant for greater purposes than superficial alterations.

Are we using our bodies and best selves to the fullest or simply reassigning ourselves without purpose?

The Third Option: Yourself

Right now, there's a lot out there influencing people to choose one side over another and never the most important; a third option, which should be your first option: yourself.

The most important choice is to prioritize yourself.

But from your greater self and the priorities that match.

If you’re trying to “reassign” or run away instead of reassessing from the inside, you are not choosing yourself. You’re choosing the “other”.

This choosing the “other” based on it being the better option to avoid the worse, is what's causing a lot of these children to want to body swap.

For example, girls are being told in many homes from a young age how hard life is going to be for them as girls, how they should be afraid of boys, how men are going to prey upon them, how men are more powerful, and how women are being treated unfairly because they are women.

So it's no wonder that there are girls who would want to swap bodies and become boys, believing that if they could now switch identities, they would be safer, they would be in power, and they could call all the shots from the top.

Societal narratives are causing identity confusion and distress.

How do these negative narratives about gender impact children's sense of self?

On the other hand, boys are now being taught in schools and all around us, how they are basically predators, how they are toxic, how men can't help themselves—it's just a symptom of the patriarchy; being a creep.

So it's no wonder that some boys, not wanting to identify as predators, who are also seeing that now girls are being highlighted as the better ones, would want to switch bodies and become girls.

This is all so distorted.

We have to look deeply at why people are not accepting who they are. The key to solving the issues we’ve inherited is not in demonizing one another or wanting to get rid of or replace one who is supposed to lay at the top of the power podium with another.

You just end up with the same.

This is why we have all this flip-flopping, because people don’t feel safe in who they are.

There is now an “anti-reassignment” campaign led by the kids and now early adults who had their bodies mutilated as children.

They are now feeling such deep remorse, realizing that it turns out they can't just switch and be the other thing. Many of them wish someone had helped them process what they were going through as a child caught in the middle of this identity crisis.

They didn't know about the third option; their true selves that is absent of body. They didn’t know how to own what they were given and how to stand in their power and get on with doing what they came here to add value absent of the noise.

Choosing the Lesser Evil in Life

In politics, people often talk about voting for the lesser of two evils.

It’s so normalized that people nod in understanding as if this makes sense.

This idea that there are only two people who could represent a country like America, with 300 million people, is absurd. In contrast, a country like Norway, where my husband is from, has about 6 million people and 8 to 10 political parties.

There's no way that choosing from one or the other can possibly be the best, and people instead settle for the “best of the worst” to represent such a diverse population. So when people are voting, many of them are voting for what they perceive as the “lesser” evil, which means they are still, by their own omission, choosing evil.

Perhaps people are doing this in their lives as well.

Many are choosing the things they do by default, believing it is the lesser of two awful options.

It’s always this one or the other. Always duality.

When it comes to boys wanting to be girls, girls wanting to be boys, and people wanting to be pretty much anything but themselves, maybe it's because they believe they themselves are flawed and evil.

Not that what they choose instead is better, it’s just not “worse.” than the evil they perceive themselves as.

This mindset of the “lesser of two evils” tells us that both choices must be awful, so figure out which side of evil you're on.

Either way, you're kinda screwed.

But it’s better to choose the other than yourself.

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend who realized she had been hiding and living under a disguise, using her religion, her skin color (identifying as white) and nationality (she’s American) to allow herself to be “identified” and governed by.

Walking through the world as a “white woman”, she felt the stigma of being “privileged” in ways others couldn't, she admitted that this gave her a sense of entitlement and power. But also guilt, rage and shame. She has a very tough childhood and adulthood was filled with more downs that made life hard for anyone to deal with.

Yet the “identity” forced her to act otherwise.

Underneath it all, she felt this wasn't true, but because she was in a culture, a religion, and a very dominant community where everyone was comfortable living the lie, she didn't dare to confront it.

But this nagging feeling led her to travel the world with her family, probably unconsciously seeking another choice.

As she went out into the world, the falsehoods she allowed to run her life became unbearable.

Eventually, she left her religion.

She almost left her marriage.

The realization of all of this and more made her relationship with her husband really hard, because he wasn’t ready to let go of all the things dictating their life.

She realized she was in an identity crisis.

She had to figure out how to let go of who she was not.

It wasn't about who she was; it was about rejecting the false identities assigned to her.

This journey was about accepting who she was underneath it all.

It has been damn hard, but after a few years down in the trenches of reality, they are pulling through and starting to thrive in themselves.

Together

It's interesting because the same friend who came to this realization once asked about my hair. I have interlocks that look like tiny dreadlocks, to get this look it’s like crocheting my hair, which I've done for about 13 years.

My hair is now falling near my waist, it wasn’t much shorter when she commented years ago," Wow, I'm so glad I don't have that hair; it seems like so much work."

I responded, "I love my hair. I love its uniqueness. God gave me this hair for me to wear and I’m grateful."

Especially since that wasn’t always the case.

Many black women do not embrace their hair. We've been told our hair is a problem in so many ways.

I was one of those who rejected myself when I wanted straighter hair for what I said would be “easier”.

But why would rejecting this gift that was given to me at birth “easier”?

Easier for who?

Easier for what?

Why would it be easier to accept myself after such an alteration of myself to such a degree?

So thirteen years ago, I removed the wig I was wearing I shaved my head when I was pregnant with my first daughter.

I refused to let her “not see me”, I couldn’t imagine going into motherhood raising a child wanting for them to embrace the gifts they came with if I wasn’t.

It was a ritual to accept myself fully.

It was a commitment to love myself as I was planted here, with all my uniqueness.

I swore to myself, If my hair grew back, I would honor and love it as it deserved.

Some of the things we do against ourselves don’t come with second chances.

That’s why I’m so outraged about this whole “reassignment” genital mutilation thing happening to children.

But I needed to add something inspiring to the conversation in a soft and welcoming and loving way.

So I sat down and I wrote and then I illustrated and when I looked up there were five of them ready to greet the world.

Join the Journey

These five books have taken me on a real personal journey.

I would love it if some of you would read "I Am Beautiful Because I Am" and share your thoughts with me. Read it to children even if you don’t have any of your own.

You don't need to be a parent or have children; you just need to want to dive into something beautiful.

If that's the case, hit reply and let me know, and I will send you an illustrated proof copy of the book.

It will be launching officially soon, but right now, I'd love to get as many opinions as possible and have you join my Advanced Reader Crew.

When this book launches, all the other four books will launch as well, in both paperback and digital. In addition to “I’m Beautiful Because I Am, there is "I'm a Genius Because I Am," "I'm Patient Because I Am," "I'm Grateful Because I Am," and "I'm a Winner Because I Am."

Each book delves deeper into the meanings of these words, beyond their typical connotations, helping not just children but everyone remember the greatness within us and enabling us to do what we came here to do and let go of what we're not.

It's the way we see the world that causes us to believe a narrative. Whether beneficial or harmful we’ll act from that belief.

So to change a bad story, we have to go back to our origin story, where we know we are beautiful, because we are.

Here is the first book. Hit reply for a digital proof copy.