Owning Your Identity with Confidence
“For so much of our lives we are told what beauty is, what it looks like, who possesses it, who doesn’t... And the ones pushed to the margins are rarely given the pen to write ourselves and our own definitions in.” Elaine Welteroth, More Than Enough
Coming into your own, unique identity is a constant and ever-evolving process. Understanding my identity has been one of the most challenging hurdles I’ve faced in becoming the woman I am today.
Several years back I stumbled upon a TED Talk given by Judge Helen Whitener that was titled, “Claiming Your Identity by Understanding Your Self-Worth.” Prior to watching, I never had what felt like an adequate definition of identity and all it encompassed. It wasn’t until I heard her definition of identity that I felt comfortable and confident to dive deeper into my own.
Identity - the way we see ourselves and the way we assess our self-worth.
I believe comprehending the definition of identity is integral to understanding the intricacies of our own. It’s what allows us to feel self-assured, be collaborative in nature and share in the growth of those around us. With this definition, I learned one of the most important things that’s allowed me to feel confident in my evolving identity today — it’s personal. If described as the way we see ourselves and the way we assess our self-worth, our identity is something no one can truly dictate or take away from us. The possessive nature of this definition makes it hard to believe that anyone or anything could successfully strip any aspects of our identity away from us. With this interpretation, we are in control.
Growing up, I’m not sure if I ever thought I was beautiful… with unwavering confidence at the very least. Being “racially ambiguous” I often received this question, “So, what are you?” As a young girl and adolescent, I never knew how to really answer that or how people expected me to come up with any type of response. Generally, I understood what they were looking for in a response, but I began to lack comfort in trying to fit into a mold, in order to justify my identity, solely to make those around me comfortable.
For those of you that may not know, I am of mixed race — my biological mother is White & my biological father, Black. To add another layer, I was also adopted & am the only person of color in my family.
Growing up in a predominately White environment, it’s taken me a while to understand my identity in its many complexities, and honestly this understanding evolves daily — but, today I identify as a biracial, Black woman.
My family has always aimed to remind me of my beauty, but I never felt like I fit in with society’s standard. For the majority of my adolescent and young adult life, I believe that I was so consumed with being accepted, aligning with some standard of beauty and feeling worthy in what I believed my identity to be. I remember trying to permanently make my hair straight, using skincare products that were detrimental to my skin type, wearing lipsticks that didn’t accentuate my skin tone, not being able to find hosiery that complemented my skin color... the list goes on and on.
Lately, I’ve really been trying to reflect on the turning point in which I genuinely began to feel beautiful in my own skin... the time when I felt confident that both my identity and who I knew myself to be were enough. I can’t pin it down to a certain moment or event, but I will say that having strong women, friends, role models and mentors around me — who look like me and who see in me what I often don’t see in myself — has been a major step in my journey.
Over the last few years, I’ve put in an ample amount of work to better understand my identity in it’s ever-evolving form. What’s comical is that as soon as you begin to feel confident and fearless in this space, you change, grow and evolve… requiring you to dive even further into understanding yourself and what makes you, you.
On this journey, I’ve kept the following questions close to my heart and I’m honored to share them with you. I hope that if you are in a similar space of tuning out the noise and becoming one with yourself, that you reflect on these questions as you grow into all you are to become. It’s not necessary that we have everything figured out in this moment, but I do believe self-awareness and staying true to ourselves are key steps in this journey.
The following questions are ones I reflect on often. I encourage you to reflect on them as you work to understand your own, unique identity.
Who are you?
Who do you want to be?
How do you plan on getting there, or are you already there?
Most importantly, will you stay true to yourself on this journey?
No matter what you “are,” even if you’re still trying to figure it all out, you are beautiful today and always. Remember, your identity is founded on how you see yourself and how you assess your self-worth.
It’s personal and nothing can ever strip that from you. Own your identity with the confidence only you can provide yourself.
Owning our identity with confidence can often be a difficult task.
Most times, it seems as soon as we are confident in this space that we are forced to question what we believe to be true about ourselves.
Remember, your identity is personal and no matter how hard the universe tries, it can and will never be stripped from you.
