Centering Liberation at 44: The Art of Rewriting My Story of Worth

Apr 12

Honoring grief, reclaiming joy, and discovering what it means to celebrate yourself on the page and in the body.

Hey, Collective,

This Wednesday, I’ll turn 44.

As I approach this birthday, I find myself deep in the first week of a 12-week creative recovery journey through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. At the heart of this process are two core practices:

Morning Pages: Three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing every morning to clear your mind, release stuck emotions, and tap into buried truth.
Artist Dates: Weekly solo excursions that nurture your inner child and replenish your creative well.

This work isn’t about performance. It’s about presence. And this week, presence led me into something unexpected: a reflection on grief, celebration, and the power of showing up for myself.

Last year, I made the commitment to celebrate me during my birth month.

In the past, my birthday had always been a source of consternation, riddled with grief and the ever-looming feelings of whether my life was worthy of celebration. Was it the despair of unmet expectations? That once, just once, I might matter enough to be a forethought and not an afterthought. That someone might actually plan something for me with intention, with care, with a love that reminded me I was not just seen, but cherished.

Could the world slow down just long enough to gaze my way?

Could I be the center?

This body.
This Black body.
This female, Black body.
This wife.
This mother of three.
This daughter.

This daughter.
This daughter.
This daughter.

When you grow up disconnected from your birth mother, whether by thousands of miles or just a few feet, a story starts to form about your place in this world and your right to be celebrated for your existence.

Imagine: the day that’s supposed to be filled with cards and candles passes by without a single call from the one who birthed you. Where would that live in your body? Where would that feeling take root and grow into weeds of despair?

For me, it was my worth.
My sacredness.
My dignity.

These moments of missed calls or texts weren’t just about my mother. My father, too, sometimes reinforced that same ache. Their absence wasn’t neutral. It mirrored a lifetime of being pushed to the margins. Another reminder that I never felt fully integrated into the family unit.

How could I be?

A mother still struggling for stability.
A single father trying his best, while raising twins and reaching for two older children across two different households.

Sometimes, in the frenzy of survival, children become collateral damage.

You learn not to expect celebration.
You guard yourself.
You tell yourself: maybe the miracle of your life just isn’t meant to be honored.

And in the rare moments that someone does show up—skating parties in your youth, a surprise 18th birthday, a surprise Zoom call during your 40th—you don’t know what to do with it. You shrink. You fumble. You become Issa Rae’s The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl, unsure how to inhabit this strange feeling of being centered.

Because no one ever taught you how.

But then one day, something shifts.

You ask, with curiosity: How much of my life was spent in grief because I never acknowledged the trauma living in my body?

The sadness. The disappointment. The constriction.

It was there: in my chest, my breath, my posture.

And when I finally turned toward it, cupped up that little Amber, even the 22-year-old Amber, 10 days away from becoming a single mom, crying in a friend’s bedroom, I started to ask a new question.

What if I could see her with care, with clarity, with conviction?

What if I could say: Your story was penned by destructive forces, but you always had the power to write a new one.

And then I began to see:
People had always shown up.
Love had always been here.
I just hadn’t known how to let it in.

Living in 3D Power means honoring the story you’ve lived, while giving yourself permission to write a truer one.

The Power of Discovery

Discovery invites us to turn toward the truth we’ve been avoiding and find ourselves waiting there.

Morning Pages gave me access to grief I had been holding in my body for years. Uncelebrated birthdays. Longing for affirmation. Old narratives that no longer serve me. But in the stream of honesty, I found clarity and the courage to challenge those stories.

Discovery Curiosities:

What did birthdays mean to me growing up?
What story did I inherit about my worthiness to be celebrated?
Where in my life have I been made to feel like an afterthought?

The Power of Discernment

Discernment is the courage to question the narratives we’ve accepted as truth.

I saw how much of my identity had been shaped by emotional absence. But discernment gave me space to name that pain without becoming it. To ask what I want to carry forward and what I’m ready to leave behind.

Discernment Curiosities:

Where in my body do I still carry the grief of being unseen or unacknowledged?
What does it feel like to center myself, not out of ego, but out of reverence?
Where do I still flinch when loved?

The Power of Determination

Determination is not about effort. It’s about devotion.

Choosing to celebrate myself this year isn’t performative. It’s restorative. It’s a radical decision to center myself with care and dignity. Not because someone else remembered. But because I did.

Determination Curiosities:

What is one way I can intentionally honor the miracle of my life this week?
Who are the people who center me without asking?
How will I write a new narrative that reflects the truth: I have always been loved?

Closing Reflection + Visual Journaling Prompt

This weekend, I invite you to reclaim your story by returning to your body and your creativity.

Visual Journaling Prompt:

Do: Draw, collage, or script a scene from your childhood where you longed to feel celebrated. Now, reimagine that scene with your present self entering the frame.
Say: What do you say to your younger self? What do you give them?
Feel: What colors or textures feel like celebration, softness, or sacredness?

Let this be the beginning of a new conversation between the you who was, the you who is, and the you who is still becoming.

To reclaim the center is to return to the truth: You were never meant to live on the margins of your own story.

So here’s to 44.
To the sacred return.
To becoming the woman my younger self needed.
To the constant unfolding of new ways to love me.
And to telling the truth: Love has been here all along.

If this week’s podcast episode or roundup activated something in you, don’t keep it to yourself. Listen to Episode 13: Emma Answers Your Questions: Confidence, Friendship, and Finding Her Voice and forward it to a friend or loved one, leave a review, and subscribe to our Substack and YouTube channel for more reflections.

As always, please go to our website to suggest further questions or topics we can discuss.

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And, if you are seeking sanctuary, I encourage you to find community within our 3D Power Collective. Complete the needs assessment and learn more!

In solidarity, action, and love,

Amber

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AMBER SESSOMS