she’s naturally the girl that people talk to.
people see her
and open up with a little joke
or anecdote.
they feel her
and know that she is peace.
she is safety
she is a temporary home
for the fleeting feels
and thoughts
that are bursting to escape from their heads
they know she’ll politely smile
and keep them safe
allowing a tidbit of advice to come through
if they are willing to pay the price
a small fee
in the form of
identifying and accepting
what it is that she sees in them
because she connects to them so deeply
her eye is trained
to see right through their exterior
and the initial few layers guarding their interior
all the way to what lies deeper inside
they see her and open up
Because for once in their life
They know, they don’t have to hide.
there’s no need for the disguise
or to fight the urge
of the people pleaser who lives in all of us.
for once, she makes them feel ok
to not think about “us”.
her vibrational pull
and gentle nature
make them gravitate toward her
because they know she did nothing to lure.
she seeks nothing from them
but has the capacity to give everything,
yet very few ever give in to greed
because just a few seconds in her presence
given them all that they need.

to answer the question.
the thing that makes me strong is

empathy.

Dear World,

C.S. Lewis wrote “to love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.” When I think about the question what makes me strong it is the ability to be vulnerable yourself and others even when your heart has been broken. To choose to be seen and known, even when it is hard. As I look at my own heart I see the bruises and blood oozing from it indicating the hurt that others have inflicted on me. However I also how it glimmers with hope, how it is still malleable, how it is still vulnerable despite what it has endured.

Friends have chosen to cut ties me for reasons I do not know or understand. While not having an explanation or a chance to defend myself still stings, I have become more appreciative of the small tribe of people who surround me with love, support, and encouragement. I do everything I can to let them know how much they mean to me and how much I value our friendship. Instead of choosing to self-isolate, I choose community.

I try to be 100% honest and real about the grief that I face. I do not hide away my tears even if it may make others uncomfortable. These tears are borne out of love for the one I have lost—a mix of wonderful memories and bittersweet emotions. The grief has made me more aware. I unite my grief with that of others who are grieving. I also work to comfort them and help them find hope and healing, even as I myself work to find comfort, hope, and healing after loss.

I have been bullied for most of my life. Despite this fact I do not seek revenge on those who have wronged me, in fact it’s not even an option. Instead I use those experiences to help bring awareness to the bullying that goes on in schools and other places and in doing so make you, world, a better and safer place to live. Even so I humbly admit that I am not perfect and that I do need God’s help to forgive the people who have broken my heart. Being able to see the ways that you need to grow and improve shows true strength.

In the past year or so I have had to learn how to ask for help when I need it. I have had to delve deeper into my own story, and my own emotions. I’ve had to become my own protector when no one will come to my defense. And though I know I still have work to do I think it is the process of becoming a more confident, whole, and healed version of myself shows strength.

My refusal to sit in the shadows and let life make me bitter, but to instead choose to blossom and become a better version of myself is my greatest strength.

For so long world you have told me that strength is how much weight you can lift. Your definition of strength made me think of superheroes who could lift more than their own body weight and carry out heroic feats, therefore I never considered myself as strong. But as I have gotten older I have found freedom in refuting your definition of strength and letting my own definition evolve. I have discovered that there is strength in vulnerability. And I am learning to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable has been the greatest risk, but it will be the greatest reward.

Sincerely,

Believing in yourself is the first
Step to building strength that doesn’t rest.

Then, listening to others, not needing
To participate, unjudgemental, hearing
What others need, interject, harboring
Your doubts and advice so as not harming.

Speak my mind, state my faith,
Being proud of my achievements whose breadth
May seem unimportant to others, but their breath
Is my motivation to stretch abilities in depth.

Faith and belief are the core
Of my power to never bore,
As I know their roots moor
My might within a mind who’s dire.

My scars, those that society frowns
Upon, are my badges of honor, survivals,
Will, and mind over matters
That seem trivial in light of my powers.

©️ Malak K C ©️

Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, one of my favorite shows that I’d watch with my parents was Xena: the Warrior Princess. I remember staring in awe as Xena single-handedly defeated her sworn enemies. She represented everything I wanted to be.

Attempting to find a show to entertain myself with, I came across my beloved childhood show. I excitedly pressed play. However, not even five minutes into the first episode, I thought “man, this show kind of sucks.” My childhood show had unexpectedly lost its former glory, replaced with sharp criticism and sudden unmet expectations.

This change of perspective bothered me. Why was I now seeing this show with very different eyes?

The swords Xena wielded felt as though they had pierced right through me. I couldn’t shake the feeling of discontentment. I dug a bit deeper, and arrived at a very honest realization that perhaps it wasn’t the show I was unsatisfied with; I was unsatisfied with myself.

I hadn’t become this strong, independent woman, worthy of admiration. I was nothing like Xena. I stumble over my words when I speak up for myself, I’m scared of driving and turbulence on flights, and there’s been more times than I’d like to admit where I’ve stayed silent in the face of disrespect and humiliation. On top of it all, I barely know any proper self-defense, much less how to wield a weapon.

It wasn’t until a recent therapy session where I told my therapist that ‘war coursed through my veins’ – something I had begun to say recently – that I would soon form a new perspective. My father escaped the Salvadoran civil war in 1989, for a chance at survival and a better life in the US. The war devastated him, our family, country, and the Salvadoran diaspora that followed. Yet, deep down, I was unironically proud of this fact; I was certain that if my dad could survive a war, so could I. Strength meant knowing how to survive war.

As this story unraveled during therapy, I continued to talk about my dad, then mom and older sister.

My dad was recently diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. As a family, we’ve had to come together to not only support him, but also each other. I shared that I had my first heart-to-heart with my mom at the age of 27, and she at 61. We cried atop her kitchen counter over a shared bottle of wine, as she opened up about her childhood, and I opened up about mine. For the first time, the compassion I felt towards my mom turned into empathy. Life felt fleeting and full at that moment; we both silently acknowledged that our time together was finite. What my mom had lived through and what I had endured wasn’t easy. Yet, sharing our burdens slowly filled our cups with strength.

My older sister flew in the week prior to my dad starting chemotherapy. Her and her husband had previously gone through this process with their daughter, my niece. My older sister and I share the same mom, but different dads; she is fourteen years my senior, and we grew up in different countries. Yet, there she was sitting across from me, in the numbing waiting room at the hospital on a gloomy Monday morning. We patiently waited as my dad underwent a procedure where he had a port inserted inside his chest; we discussed that they would eventually use that same port to intravenously inject chemotherapy drugs into his system. The all-too-familiar lump formed inside my throat, but this time, it was different; it was full of grief. I began to cry, perhaps because the port had become a physical representation of my dad’s cancer, or because the dam that I believed to be neatly packing away my emotions violently burst after holding everything in. I had refused to cry in front of my parents in an effort to ‘be strong’, and had held my tears back since the diagnosis. In my despair, my older sister shared the story of an incident that occurred during my niece’s treatment, one that she hadn’t shared with me previously. She told me that during one of her chemo sessions, they realized that the treatment hadn’t gone as planned, and that they’d have to come back for another painful round the following day. After learning this, my sister broke down. She shared that my niece had never seen her cry in the 2+ years that she had battled cancer. Upon seeing my sister cry, my niece desperately bawled between breaths, “I’m going to die!”. At that moment, my sister quickly responded with “I’m not crying because you’re going to die; I’m crying because you’re going to have to come back again tomorrow.” My sister said that my niece then cried out, “oh no! I’m going to have to come back tomorrow!”, and for a fleeting moment, the short-lived laughter washed away the tears in the room. Sometimes, strength doesn’t come from holding back tears, but instead embracing each other in them.

As I shared this with my therapist, after a pause she said, “You come from a strong line of women.” An audible silence followed; no one had ever stated this to me before. I took the time to let this statement soak in, and acknowledged that I do come from a strong lineage of women, and that strength lies within me.

I’ve now come to make peace with the fact that my strength may not look the same as Xena’s – and that’s okay. Strength has shown itself to me in so many different ways; surviving war, embracing vulnerability, and learning it’s okay to cry. Right now, strength remains in staying hopeful throughout my dad’s cancer treatment.

I’ve learned that my strength doesn’t just come from me; it’s been passed down, through the line of people that come before me. They are my strength, and I am theirs. This is what makes me strong.