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  • Writer's pictureAllie Graham

"And Still I Rise...."

Updated: Feb 1, 2022

A short entry for a scholarship I applied for.

In January of 2018 I found myself sitting on the bathroom floor, feeling broken and not knowing how to move forward. I had finally pulled myself out of an abusive relationship that left me in pieces. I didn't recognize the woman I saw in the mirror and nothing in my life felt like mine. Abusive relationships have a tricky way of distorting your reality and making you feel like you don't know yourself. I sat in this space of helplessness for quite some time and then one day a simple four letter statement by Maya Angelou caught my soul with the force of a storm: "And still I rise."


I'm not sure if my brain flipped upside down or my heart turned inside out but something clicked. I experienced an intense moment of reflection where I looked back on my life and the patterns that had played out over and over again and 1realized that I didn't have to continue that same cycle. Leading up to that moment I was living my life with the mentality of not being enough, for anything or anyone, including myself. Never in my life had I known what it was like to experience true self love or demonstrate my authentic nature.


In that moment of reading those four words I had this overwhelming feeling that everything I had experienced wasn't done to me but done for me in order to shape me into a more whole version of myself. It's quite interesting the way life works; we experience these intense periods of contrast and then somehow find our greatest strengths through those trials.

The reason that this quote speaks so prominently to me is because it is a firm reminder that no matter what happens in my life, I will always find a greater version of myself. It gave me an entirely new outlook on life and my intentions within this world. It's a firm reminder that I don't have to view life through the eyes of lack, I don't have to vibrate with the same energy of not being enough. I can choose to perceive the world through the lense of growth and opportunity and within every single moment I have the chance to step into the next best version of myself. It is a continuous reminder that I am and will always be enough.



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