Enough is Always Enough
Joining the fight in the empowerment movement, one girl’s campaign is about to rock the school. What started out as just a thought in her head, is now becoming a reality that will change her life, and yours, for the better.
2.12.2015
There are three words on the piece of paper. Plus one blank. What you put in the blank completely changes the meaning of the sentence. It changes your perception. It changes people’s perception of you. It’s a blank that’s hard to fill, but it may just be the admitting that is tough.
The paper reads: “I am ________ enough.”
For me, the blank is filled by the word confident. For Sara Eckhardt, the creator of the I Am Enough movement, it’s pretty. The blank is our biggest insecurity.
Standing at five feet seven with gorgeous golden locks and deep ocean blue eyes, it’s hard to even imagine how she could ever feel so. She recounts times when she would stand in front of a mirror, sucking in her stomach. Or the days when she would feel guilty for having a cookie or a spoonful of ice cream. Her bubbly, outgoing personality is matched with an empathetic warmth and welcoming expression that makes you feel like you could talk to her for hours and never feel judged. And it makes you wonder how she could ever be critical of herself.
She tells me to fill the blank with my answer. And then directs me to hold my piece of paper up, so she can take my picture. The whole world (okay, maybe not the whole world, but a small portion of it) will now see what I wrote. I feel nervous about everyone being able to see that one word I put as my response, but maybe that’s just my confidence issues coming out.
Sara tells me that that’s the point of the project: to write down your innermost insecurity, because while you may think it’s not enough, it is. “I think every girl has their own insecurities,” she says. “For most people, it’s being pretty and thin and I’ve been in the same boat as them. I think that you just really need to find it within yourself and within a group of others who love you for who you really are.”
It is in her sorority, Alpha Gamma Delta, that Sara finds this loving group of women that never make her feel less than she is. “If you had asked me freshman year if I would have ever thought about joining a sorority, I probably would have said something along the lines of ‘God no,’” says Sara. “I had so many misconceptions that they were just a group of stuck up, catty girls.” But during her freshman year, Sara’s roommate Shaughnessy joined a sorority, and after being her plus one at so many events she saw a group of warm, loving, kind girls that she wanted to join. And this past fall, she did.
As we are talking one of Sara’s fellow sorority sisters approaches us at the table, her leopard print letters standing out on her black sweatshirt. A smile flits across Sara’s face and they share one of those secret looks that proves that they know what each other is thinking without a word even being said. Their conversation is quick, but there is an undeniable loving connection between these two girls.
Sara does not boast about being in a sorority, but its presence in her life is unquestionable. It was through her sorority that Sara first got her idea for the I Am Enough campaign. During a programming event she and her sisters watched the widely renowned TED Talk made by Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, on the power of vulnerability. “It was very eye opening and inspiring,” says Sara. “It’s not something you say ‘Oh that’s nice’ and then do nothing about it. I really think people need to realize why they’re doing what they’re doing and feeling why they’re feeling.”
The I Am Enough campaign will be conjoining with two other forces, to create quite the Greek empowerment movement. The first of which is
ActualSororityMove.org, or #ASM, a new movement that was started by Jessie Garber, a current student at Illinois State University. Its purpose is to combat negative stereotypes of sorority girls formed by media and social networks. #ASM asks sorority women to share stories, pictures and experiences that are true demonstrations of values of sorority women. The second joining force is all of the PanHellenic Community at Syracuse University that will come together during PanHellenic Council’s Women’s Empowerment Week.
What Sara hopes to accomplish with her campaign is to start a discussion of self-esteem and self-acceptance and what causes people to have little of either. “We get so wrapped up in our daily lives that we forget to think about self-love. That’s the point of all this,” she says. In order to make the discussion known, every member of the PanHellenic community will change their Facebook profile picture to one with an “I Am Enough” sign. To include the rest of the campus, Sara will have a photo booth with a giant “I Am Enough” sign for anyone who wants to get involved and get their picture taken.
The question that Brown brings up in her TED Talk, and the question that inspired Sara’s movement, is how do we learn to embrace our vulnerabilities and imperfections to function and feel worthy and how do we come up with the courage we need to recognize that we are enough? To answer her own question Brown says, “The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you're enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.”
That word, self-acceptance, is written in black pen, circled, and underlined 5 times in the journal that Sara carries around with her. It’s spine and cover are worn at the corners, a clear sign of its constant use. Some of the corners are folded, others have stains, but each page is full of her large, loopy handwriting. Sara says that it was through journaling that she really learned to accept herself. “It allows you to put your thoughts on paper and you can re-read them and get in touch with how you’re really feeling,” she says. There are only a dozen or so pages that are left blank, clearly indicating time to buy a new journal.
Besides her journal I see another notebook, her planner, with words written in bright pink pen that catches my eye. The date reads February 17, 2015. Next to the date are three words. I Am Enough. It’s the day her campaign will officially begin.
Tweet: Embrace your biggest insecurity and tell us why #IAmEnough
