From a writing prompt by Poet Jen Harris, from her writing workshop.
Her workshops include writing from 3 prompts, for 10 minutes each.
The prompt was this:
A word search was shown and you were to write an affirmation for yourself using the first 3 words you saw.
My three words: Ocean. Freedom. Love.
You move through the world, crashing; unsure of whether you were meant to be here. Without purpose or certainty, like you have no power. Like you don’t know the answers to the questions you ask other people to answer.
When depression has her fingers closing around your throat and darkness is beginning to smother, you know what you need better than anyone could tell you. You know in your bones where you need to go. When you allow yourself to take up space in the world, you move your body with absolute certainty. You get to the ocean; you sit, in the quiet, to stop asking everyone else to tell you who you are. You stop asking who you are.
You sit by the sea and you breathe,
doing what you never let yourself do:
just be.
Watching the waves lets love wash over you, and you have the power to believe what you’ve always known: freedom is yours. The kind of freedom you ache for is as close as the sand already sticking to every part of you. The ocean doesn’t ask whether she should be here, whether she’s loved. She doesn’t ask how she should move; if she can be. She exists. She is glory and grace and power with every drop of her being; and so are you. Let love come like the gulls do, like the waves do, like you want to. Love yourself like you love the ocean, like the ocean just is. Let yourself be free.
Lee Anne Roquemore 