More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say)

by Elaine Welteroth

“This bad thing isn’t happening to you. It is happening for you.”

Her journey is a testament to shaping what we experience for our own good. For crafting positivity as our path. For knowing that the bad is our choice and the good is our choice. And to work to choose the good. Every day. In every way.

Biraciality is a genetic fact, not a racial identity. Not yet, at least. Because as long as I was moving through a White world, I’d be seen as a Black woman—and treated accordingly.

Choosing to own my Blackness as a biracial woman felt like a powerful response to a deeply racist world.

More like conditioning. If your personal preference is rooted in generations of systemic oppression, it is never really just a preference, homie.”

I realized that they weren’t at all smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different. MICHELLE OBAMA, BECOMING

“When women affirm women, it unlocks our power. It gives us permission to shine brighter.”

I realized that if we aren’t vigilant, we can move through our entire lives feeling smaller than we actually are—by playing it safe, by unconsciously giving away our power, by dimming our radiance, by not recognizing there is always so much more waiting for us on the other side of fear.

When the music changes, so must your dance.

When you find yourself existing in the space between dreams realized, parts of you will feel too big for where you are, while other parts of you will feel too small for where you’re going. Go anyway. Do not wait. Do not wonder if you can. Do not ask for permission. When you get lost, it’s okay to stop, to look up, to look within for the answers—they’re always there. And when the world tells you to shrink, expand. Remember: You have done enough. You are enough. You were born enough. The world is waiting on you.