Breaking the Record with Roan Yellowthorn, Part 41: I’m Enough

Jackie McLean of the indie band Roan Yellowthorn grants us an inside look at the making of an album from start to finish in her ‘Breaking The Record’ column.

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:: stream “I’m Enough“ here ::

Watch: ‘I’m Enough’ – Roan Yellowthorn

It’s a new day today. Friday. And I just want to say thank you to everyone for reading my posts over the past two weeks and for reaching out to me to connect and to share your stories. Sharing my story was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. And also the best. It’s allowed me to feel like I can connect authentically with others. And that is what I’ve always wanted to be able to do.

Just jumping into the Breaking The Record series documenting the making of our album from start to finish? Read part 1 here!

It feels like the first step in a healing journey. It feels like I jumped – with the expectation of falling into a void – and was caught by loving hands. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

In many ways, I feel changed after having spoken. I feel more confident. I feel more embodied.

And yet, I am still the same. My life is still the same. My insecurities remain. I am still a human and still flawed. Feeling the love and acceptance has strengthened me. And yet it hasn’t changed who I am. Sometimes, I wish it would. Sometimes, I wish that I could be rescued. From my own mind. From my own self. But I can’t be. I have to live with myself forever. And I have to feel, intrinsically, that I am worthy. That I am valuable. That I am enough, just the way that I am.

It’s easier for me to see it in others. It’s harder for me to see it in myself.

But that’s one of the reasons that I wrote my new song.

‘I’m Enough’ started out as an assignment. The assignment was to write a sequel to the Kasey Chambers song, ‘Not Pretty Enough.’ I set out to write a song that the woman singing ‘Not Pretty Enough’ might sing once she had grown into herself and gained a sense of identity and confidence. I have to credit Kirk Pasich for this assignment. It was an excellent assignment.

It was a bit daunting to take on.

But it really allowed me to script out a model for who I wanted to be and how I wanted to feel. It allowed me to crawl into a hypothetical character and embody it. It allowed me to try on that mantra for size – ‘I am enough.’ And singing it gave me a sense of strength. A sense of urgency around finally harmonizing some of the discord that made it hard for me to believe such a thing.

Writing that song was a factor in the journey to speaking out about my own experiences.

Words are powerful. They can cause an effect. They can adjust the internal landscape.

Mantras work. Song lyrics are like mantras. If you repeat them enough, you start to believe them. More than that, your body starts to believe them. You begin to internalize the message.

When you hear, over and over again, that you’re not good enough, you believe it. That’s how the scars of emotional abuse are created.

Likewise, when you repeat to yourself, over and over again, that you ARE good enough, that has an effect, too. It can help some of those scars to fade. They’re still there but maybe, over time, they fade into the background a little bit more.

I hope that you listen to this new song and sing it with me. I hope that you believe it. You are enough. I am enough. We are enough. It’s absolutely true. Let’s believe it with all of our hearts.

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