What is "I Am"?

The words "I Am" are two of the most powerful. When they are put together, they open an energy that can shape our reality - what we put after them is a piece of our self. It may represent a momentary state of being; an expression of emotion such as, ""I am excited," "I am tired," "I am sad". Though many times what we put behind our "I am" is a reflection of how we see and define ourselves in the world. "I am a dancer," "I am smart," "I am seventeen years old." It is the collection of our "I am"s that composes who we are - that harmonizes together to create, perhaps, the strongest "I am" of all, which is the "I am" that stands alone. 

I Am. 

I Exist. 

I Belong. 

I Matter. 

Each one of us is born into this world with an inherent truth, and we spend our entire lives trying to discover what that is. It is defined by an intricate stitching of our inherited traits, the environment where we are nurtured, our beliefs - both acquired and learned, and where we are in our spiritual evolution. We are each on a journey; we are constantly discovering who we are through what we do, where we go, how we think, and what we create. From the moment we are born, we begin to define our own "I Am". 

​Everyone's SELF is unique. The tapestry we weave comes together in how we learn to interpret the world through our experience. We learn to identify our world through color, through shape, through familiar faces, sights, and sounds. We gather the information and store it into our creation of SELF. The way we understand the world becomes the foundation for how we define our "I Am". 

I AM. 

I see. 

I think.

I believe. 

I feel. 

I Matter.

Each and every one of us matters. Nowadays, we live in a world that makes it too easy for us to forget that. We are consumed by our busy-ness, by our do-ing, by our should-be-doing, by our am-i-doing-enough. Our world is fast paced, impatient, judgmental - we watch our parents struggle with their shame, their attempts to hide their emotion and vulnerability as they strive for unattainable perfection and we swallow it, we weave it into our "I Am".  

We exist in ways that disconnect us from our selves. Our senses are over stimulated. We are dependent on our technology - we spend hours upon hours redefining our image. We have taken the fear of "but what will people think" and we design ourselves around it. We must be perfect. We must produce. We must see life as a war and every stage as a battle. ​Bustling cities, ever-changing technology, Societal prescriptions for what "looks good", demanding jobs and mounting pressure to perform seep into how we define who we are.

We are STRESSED. 

Our children are stressed. They face higher demands from schools under pressure to produce test scores. They are forced to grow up faster - seeing more of the world's harshness and violence at earlier ages. Their bodies race to catch up with their thoughts, their need to perform under the pressures of their academic, familial, and social groups. They forget their voices. They enter the machine of performance, output, scores, numbers, and grades. This is all before they get home, before they face their version of an ever-evolving family structure. Their futures are uncertain and their imaginations are locked away far too early. 

Our "I Am" fades away.

Our "I Am" becomes "I Do."

We are constantly do-ing in order to get ahead of the next wave of stress coming our way. We paddle furiously - throwing money, medicine, and desperation at our stress - begging for it to disappear. We forget that as children, we knew to listen to our bodies. We forget that we once knew to jump for joy when we were happy and cry when we were sad. We forget to teach our children the tools they need to cope. As they grow, they find their own tools - often while they are already battling themselves. Self-harm becomes a way to cope. Our children lose their SELF before they even have a chance to create it. 

We lose our "I Am."  We forget that each and every one of us matters. 

The "I Am" Project was born out of my personal journey in healing. It emerged when while working with kids, I witnessed how much they hungered for ways to help them cope - and saw my young self reflected in their eyes. It has evolved into ways for kids of all ages to find their voices and access their SELF through creativity. It is an initiative to help teach our children (and their parents, teachers, friends...) to honor the messages in their bodies. Through The "I Am" Project we teach to see stress for what it truly is - an indication that we have a need not being met. We learn to understand and accept our emotions by learning how they translate through into our bodies. 

In The "I Am" Project we breathe, we sing, we dance, we box, we jump, we stretch, we draw, we write, we act - we EXPRESS. We show students that they have inherent access to ways in which they can help themselves - in every situation. Our mission is to reach as many schools as we can through workshops that give students (of all ages) the opportunity to tap into their self, to create space to tend to their emotions - and to express them in a safe, open, and nurturing way. 

Through The "I Am" Project, we guide our students to access their true "I Am". We teach that though we are all different, we are all in a journey together and that through it, each and every one of us matters. 

#IAmProject     #I_Matter

Yali Szulanski for The "I Am" Project