Ultimate Testimony by Maverick L. Malone
Good morning brilliant human. The sun is shining but I know inside, it doesn’t always match. The weather, the landscape, can be quite different, and no one knows how brutal it all is, learning to love the painful parts. I know a lot about depression, feeling down, disappointed. Our minds can be deceiving. But here’s a secret: no one has it all figured out.
I want you to know that I’m here for you which is why I felt the need to get my pen going this morning. You deserve a love letter all your own; one that opens as big and often as your heart does. I hope you read this at 5 different moments since receiving. I hope you waltz with these words.
I want to say more than just, “You are a beautiful soul.” You are an essential part of our ecosystem and nobody else can do what you do. You’re radioactive, without even realizing it. There is immense worth and merit in who you have been, who you are, who you have yet to become. Your life is one of a distinctly unique path and no one compares to you. I hope you see that.
You get to live in the fountain of your own heart, sharing your sense of beauty and wonder. The way you believe is earthshattering – you break rules, illusions, new ground on possibility. You were born into this mad world already inherently worthy and deserving. Don’t let yourself feel any other way.
A sapient librarian once said to me, “Great inspiration often comes from our lowest depths.” And my god, are you learning to swim.
This is your season of fresh invigorating renewal. Embrace life. Move at a slower pace, like nature. Get a little high, exercise, eat some comfort food. Drive home tonight in awe of your eye for all things. Keep creating magic. Don’t doubt yourself, but if you do, know that you are not alone.
You’re an adventurer. You see the world with wonder and make it that much more beautiful. Even in darkness, you are bioluminescent. You are the very light this world needs. Damn. Keep going. Keep glowing. Keep growing.
The world needs who you are destined to become.
Do you ever have those days where you feel self-doubt and low confidence and you just keep comparing yourself to everyone else and wonder what the hell you’re doing wrong?
Feeling like you’re not this or that or whatever. I was there just a few days ago.
Lately I’ve been falling down the rabbit hole of content – consuming, listening, scrolling. I didn’t realize how much of that I had begun internalizing until I found myself this week suddenly feeling very down, inundated with comparisons and numbers, facts and figures that to me personally didn’t fucking matter. What someone else is doing halfway across the country is none of my concern but somehow, as we tend to do, we make it mean something about us.
So there I was, on a Tuesday no less, the day of the week meant for open mic night poetry when I need my confidence and sense of self to be ironclad enough for me to get up on stage and once again face my fear of public speaking (which at its core is just a fear of being seen and fully witnessed – things I very much want), and I was falling apart at the seams so much my stuffing was coming out all over the place – or so it felt like.
I was hit hard with imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and a very warped view of my reality.
By plugging into everyone else’s noise, I had drowned out my own unique sound. I couldn’t hear myself. I was too hyper fixated on comparing myself to what everyone else was doing and what I felt in the moment I had gotten wrong rather than what I had gotten right. So I put up a question box on my Instagram stories asking for advice, support and any kind words they had to offer. I opened up a little window of light to allow others to peer inside, into myself and what was going on in my internal world.
I was hesitant to share that and pose the question box because majority of the time, very few reply when I use that feature, which only further drives those feeling home. But I put the question box up anyway, hit post and put my phone away for the rest of the day. I switched from listening to random podcasts to motivational speeches and poems from my favorite spoken word artist. I changed what I was consuming and slowly began to feel better.
When I got home after work, I checked my Instagram and was floored by the response. I had an outpouring of love and kind words from my community.
In my moment of weakness humanity and vulnerability (because let’s absolutely rewrite the script here!), I had made a very important bid for connection. I had called out to the world and the world answered back.
It’s a hard thing to admit sometimes, that we need support. But how incredibly human of us – to simply need other humans. There is nothing shameful about that in the least bit. As fiery and self-assured as I may seem, I still fall prey to low self-esteem and shaken confidence. I can still be swallowed by my shadow in a moment, but it is in these moments where we are presented with a grand opportunity: what can we learn from it? How can we turn it into something beautiful?
The responses I received were nothing short of encouraging and exactly what I needed to hear in the moment. This is the incredible power of words: they heal, they uplift, they connect.
The following day, a whole episode on inadequacy, imposter syndrome and the dangers of social media flowed out of me, effortlessly that will be up next week on my podcast, Ink Speak. And as I read back through some of the responses from my question box that inspired such an episode, I had an idea: to share those words.
Just as others so beautifully gave to me, so too did I want to turn those words around and give back.
From bits and pieces of what others have said to me, not just on that question box but over the months and years (I have a penchant for keeping sweet texts and messages), I cobbled them together into poem I opened this post with. They became a love poem, a testimony, a spell for anyone to read in a time of need whenever they inevitably find themselves in that low place.
That place might not ever go away – it’s part of life, the heaviness. But as we grow, we gather tools in which we can use to help us more easily navigate it, and each time, doing so gets a little bit easier. We can’t always see ourselves clearly so having small reminders, no matter whether they are firefly flashes for a brief moment or whole lightning storms across the sky, they all illuminate and allow us to find our way back home to the truth.