You Are Enough – Part 1: Becoming the Author of Your Own Story

🎙️ A 3-part podcast series with Lawrence Harris – all parts available now.

In this powerful first conversation, Lawrence Harris shares about growing up in silence, carrying shame, and the pivotal moment he chose to become the author of his own story, and how you can too.

You’ll hear about:

• The roots of self-worth and identity
• How childhood wounds show up in adulthood
• Reframing shame and beginning again
• Encouragement for young adults stuck in comparison, burnout, or self-doubt
• The first steps to healing from within

 All 3 parts are now live – listen in any order or binge the full series:

• Part 1 – You’re here
• Part 2 – From Shame to Self-Worth
• Part 3 – Healing, Identity & Purpose in Action

Looking for clarity in your own story?
Explore the 3-Month Purpose Pathway Coaching Program, designed to help you reconnect with identity, align with purpose, and live with impact: https://lifeleadershipconnected.com/tjanster/

Book your free Discovery Call at: https://calendly.com/daviddahlendcruz/30min

Subscribe to Life & Leadership Connected for more real, faith-rooted conversations.

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Transcript

0:05

When people meet who I am today, you know, they see Lawrence and he's 19 years old and he's got his suit and he has his own business and an author and "My gosh, look at all this stuff he's doing now." But people don't see the 12 year old kid sitting on this black couch as his dad punches his eye. They don't see that part. They don't see the parts when I felt lost, not physically lost, but spiritually lost as if I was moving through life in my body, but not present in my body, if that makes sense. And to get where I am today, it was not easy. There's. There wasn't any overnight solution. There wasn't any just do this one tip and it'll all be better. Hmm. But the one tip that I want to give now, now for the people who are tuning in and maybe you're driving and you need something that just gets you: Get honest and realize that what you've been through doesn't define you. Because maybe you grew up in a situation similar to mine. Maybe you grew up getting abused. Maybe you were homeless. Maybe you had an addiction. I've met all types of people doing this kind of work. And the one thing that I tell all of them is where you have been does not need to define where you shall go. Prior to my dad being abusive to me and my siblings when I was 12 and 13, up until the age of 11, I never had anyone I could really call a friend because I've always been different. I've always stood out too much. You know, when everybody else wanted to play sports or soccer, I wanted to go read books. And, unfortunately, growing up as a black man in America, I'm often told things like, you you need to act a certain way or dress a certain way or talk a certain way. I don't. And because of that, people never really accepted me much. So think about the feeling of all you want as a little kid is friends. You want to be accepted. You want people to play with you on the playground. But no matter how hard you try, you only get bullied for it. For the way you talk and how you look and how you dress and all these different things. Then you fast forward a few years and now your own family is hurting you. And when I was, this would have taken place when I was 14. My dad kicked me out in front of a church. So now you have like the whole congregation in your business. You're trying to balance middle school and high school. You're trying to balance having, you know, younger siblings, understanding yourself, puberty, the COVID pandemic. It's like everything was beating me down left, right and center. Then, you know, with the help of many people like my therapist, my mum, my family on her side. It took a lot of people to get me out of that spot. we all have to know that our pain has a purpose. Like when you go to the gym, you don't get bigger muscles by lifting small weight. You get big muscles by lifting heavy weight. And if you want to be strong, you must go through challenge. If you want to be smart, you must feel dumb for a period of time in the process of getting smart. If you want to become a doctor, you have to go to 12 years of medical school and graduate and get a 4.0 GPA and do all these hard things, but on the other side of the pain is a reason. Hello and warm welcome to the Life and Leadership Connected podcast. I am David Dahlén D'Cruz and I'm so excited you're here today. In this podcast we dive into what really matters. Finding your life's purpose. Discovering your 'why'. and learning how to connect life and leadership in a healthy and sustainable way. What fuels your energy and passion? How do we grow and stay as leaders who make a real difference? inspiration to live with greater purpose and lead with heart. Want to learn more? Visit lifeleadershipconnected.com. I'm your guide and coach, David Dahlén D'Cruz. Let's get started. Hello and welcome to a new episode of the podcast, Life and Leadership Connected Podcast. And today's episode is one of those sacred conversations that won't just speak to your mind, it will speak also to your soul. You see, if you've ever wrestled with feeling like you're not enough, if you have chased success, but still feel a quiet ache of inadequacy, or if you have grown up in a world that taught you to stay small, just to survive. Then, my friend, this conversation is for you today in this episode because my guest today is someone who has lived through what many only read about. As a teenager, Lawrence Harris, who's my guest faced the dark weight of complex trauma, silent shame, and a deep inner breakdown. But today, that's not ends. With courage and compassion, Lawrence began writing his way back to himself. Not just literally, but spiritually, emotionally and somatically. Through journaling, movement and radical self-honesty, he rebuilt his sense of identity. Today he's a coach, a mentor, a voice of young people and a guiding light for anyone ready to reclaim the pen and become the author of their own story. You will hear about the moment everything cracked open at age 19. The tools helped him to step out of hiding and into healing. And by helping young people, and let's say also adult people. to see that they are already enough. Why that has become his life mission. conversation is not just about healing trauma, it's about becoming a whole. It's not just about the past, it's about the power of presence and the choices we get to make today. So whether you are 16, 26 or 36, if you are in a season of doubt, transisioning awakening, keep listening because episode will be more than a podcast episode. It's an invitation to come home to yourself. So welcome, Lawrence, to the Life and Leadership Connected Podcast Thank you, I appreciated that introduction. That's summerized so much in my life right there. Did I miss anything? Well, like you said, When people meet who I am today, you know, they see Lawrence and he's 19 years old and he's got his suit and he has his own business and an author and "My gosh, look at all this stuff he's doing now." But people don't see the 12 year old kid sitting on this black couch as his dad punches his eye. They don't see that part. They don't see the parts when I felt lost, not physically lost, but spiritually lost as if I was moving through life in my body, but not present in my body, if that makes sense. And to get where I am today, it was not easy. There's. There wasn't any overnight solution. There wasn't any just do this one tip and it'll all be better. Hmm. But the one tip that I want to give now, now for the people who are tuning in and maybe you're driving and you need something that just gets you: Get honest and realize that what you've been through doesn't define you. Because maybe you grew up in a situation similar to mine. Maybe you grew up getting abused. Maybe you were homeless. Maybe you had an addiction. I've met all types of people doing this kind of work. And the one thing that I tell all of them is where you have been does not need to define where you shall go. Yeah, that's good. That's really good. I want to begin stories are born, Lawrence, inside. Can tell us a bit what gives you life in the work you do today and what brings you energy, purpose, and keeps you going day by day? The thing that give me life and energy for this, because... That's a really big question right there. There's a lot of things. For one, I just feel really passionate about it. But the thing that keeps me coming even when I'm tired or I'm sleepy or I just have my own personal issues and stress in life is I know that the work I do is helping people in ways I can't even comprehend. A few weeks ago, I was walking down the street in my city and I'm not like famous or anything, but I'm a local mini celebrity. And this guy saw me and he came up and said, Hey man, I know you don't know me, but your video convinced me to not end my life. Things like that is what keeps me fueled to do this because I've never seen him again. I asked him what his name was and he just didn't want to tell me. in part because he was afraid of like the judgment of the world. But knowing that I can make an impact on people, maybe that impact is someone just feels inspired, they feel motivated. They're like, yeah, I could do it too. You know, I'm going to start journaling and I'm going to feel better. Or something as big as them realizing that their life has meaning and their life has hope. That's what keeps me fueled. Wow, that's good, really good. You've said that you grew up in a world that taught you to stay small to survive. Can you maybe take us back to the younger version of you, Lawrence, and help us understand what is life like in that environment? So, as a child, I was often very like physically small. Even to this day, I'm by height standard, I'm pretty short. I'm five foot six, which is like the world average, but it's slightly short in America. But when I was 12 and 13 and all this stuff started happening in my life, I would physically be beaten down because there's not really much that you can do strength wise against somebody who's in their 40s. That's just a physical thing there. But then the mental aspect is where it really gets tough because whenever I would try to stand up for myself and my siblings, things would get worse. And I began to realize that The only way to keep me and them safe was to play small, to keep myself out the way, and to not try and... be anything more than I was mentally trapped into being. And it's one of those feelings that you can't even really put it into words. It's something that you just know. It's like drowning without water. And the only way to get out is to kind of give up. And it's so dark, but that's how I got through it. I at many times had to give up on this idea of it getting better because every time I would stand up and hope for something and every time I would stand up and pray or wish or think that maybe somehow things get better, they would get worse. And time and time again, it just led me to getting smaller and smaller and smaller and That's the best way I can put it. It's this weight that crushes you physically, mentally, and spiritually. And the only thing that I was able to do to get out of that spot mentally was brute force my way out. It's... It's something that I, I'm gonna make sure that when I write my next book, I'm gonna include that part in there. Cause that's the, that's something that would take me a while to really put the pieces together to explain. Yeah. For those who don't know you, who have never heard of your name, us a little bit shortly about your story. mean, how did you get into this trauma they can relate to what you're saying now? So, Prior to my dad being abusive to me and my siblings when I was 12 and 13, up until the age of 11, I never had anyone I could really call a friend because I've always been different. I've always stood out too much. You know, when everybody else wanted to play sports or soccer, I wanted to go read books. And, unfortunately, growing up as a black man in America, I'm often told things like, you you need to act a certain way or dress a certain way or talk a certain way. I don't. And because of that, people never really accepted me much. So think about the feeling of all you want as a little kid is friends. You want to be accepted. You want people to play with you on the playground. But no matter how hard you try, you only get bullied for it. For the way you talk and how you look and how you dress and all these different things. Then you fast forward a few years and now your own family is hurting you. And when I was, this would have taken place when I was 14. My dad kicked me out in front of a church. So now you have like the whole congregation in your business. You're trying to balance middle school and high school. You're trying to balance having, you know, younger siblings, understanding yourself, puberty, the COVID pandemic. It's like everything was beating me down left, right and center. Then, you know, with the help of many people like my therapist, my mum, my family on her side. It took a lot of people to get me out of that spot. Like mentally and getting out of his house too. And I realized that, okay, all this stuff I went through, not really much I can do. You know, the path of the past, but I know someone out there can relate to this. I can't be the only one who had this issue. And eventually that led me down the path of making YouTube videos and just coming on camera talking about my life. Talking about whatever was on my mind that day. Like, hey, you know, here's five tips to be better at not having panic attacks. uh Other stuff like just motivational videos. Like, okay, I know life is hard, but it's going to get better. Yeah. And it was kind of my own way of giving therapy to myself because I had a therapist, but sometimes you need to give someone advice in order for you to give yourself that same advice. And through the years, that just built up into me going into churches and doing events there or school assemblies or Now this podcast and going up on stages and my younger self will be proud. He will be very proud of this. Yeah. So what would you say to that younger version of you, Lawrence? that younger version of you need to hear most no one was saying at the time to you? Your pain has a purpose. That's what I would tell them. Because, you know, a lot of the generic advice that people gave me was actually really good, but it's the kind of stuff that you hear it so often that you're just like, they're just saying that. Like, it'll get better. That's true. It will get better. But you hear that so much that it just sounds like background noise to you or, you know, pray about it. If you pray about it, it will get better. But you hear that so much that it just becomes background noise to you. But what my younger self really needed to hear was, your pain has a purpose. Because we cannot brush past crying yourself to sleep at night. We can't brush past that. We can't brush past feeling like you're trapped in this cycle that's only going down and down. We can't brush past that. We have to acknowledge the harsh truth. We have to acknowledge that this is what's going on. But we all have to know that our pain has a purpose. Like when you go to the gym, you don't get bigger muscles by lifting small weight. You get big muscles by lifting heavy weight. And if you want to be strong, you must go through challenge. If you want to be smart, you must feel dumb for a period of time in the process of getting smart. If you want to become a doctor, you have to go to 12 years of medical school and graduate and get a 4.0 GPA and do all these hard things, but on the other side of the pain is a reason. I'll try to remember it off the top of my head, but I was reading through the Bible and I got to this verse that was Isaiah 61. one, "The Spirit of the Lord hath come upon me to preach tidings onto the meek, bind up the brokenhearted, and I'm trying to remember the last part. Okay, I can't remember the last part of it, but the gist of it was that the Lord sent me to do this, to go to those who are in pain. and let them know that you can become strong. Oh, the last part was "...preach freedom to the captives". You know, going to the people who feel trapped and like nobody's there for them and letting them know that you can get through this. Yes. Wow. You're 19 now, Yes. you hit turning point and you've described it as a breakdown first, but in many ways it also seems hurt you, It was also a beginning. of a breakthrough. And what did that reveal to you about the way to carry pain? Well, what that realized to me about caring pain is that first we have to acknowledge that it's there. You know, there's a lot of, I like to call it toxic positivity, where people try to just only talk about the good side. The only one to talk about, it'll get better and everything's gonna be great and cupcakes and roses. No, to solve your problem, you must first admit that it's there. You must first admit that, I have this pain, I have this trauma, this thing happened to me. Somebody did something, somebody said something, or it could be as literal as I rolled my ankle. I have physical pain. First, you got to admit it's there. Second, you have to say, okay, this happened to me, but I'm not going to let this define me. There's nothing wrong with being upset. There's nothing wrong with feeling sad or having this trauma response, the issue comes when we stay stuck there. Because, and I'm saying this as somebody who was stuck there, the thing that kept me in that dark spot for so long was constantly pointing the finger at people. It's this person's fault. I'm like this because they did this to me. Okay. Now what you want to do is reclaim your power. Yes, they did that to me. Yes, this happened. Yes, I went through this traumatic experience, but I'm going to make something better out of this. How? I'm not sure. When? Not sure. But I know I'm going to do it. And it revealed to me that as much pain as we go through, we often make it a lot worse in our head than it needs to be. Cause it was bad regardless, but when we dwell on it and when we fuel into that painful fire, it gets worse. All these thoughts that you have now, how to deal with pain and so on, where did you learn that? Not every 19 years old, or maybe 13, 14 year old when this happened, not everybody think like that. did you into those thoughts? There were a lot of things that played into it. The main ones, I would say journaling. That's been a key point because let's say you spend 15 minutes every day for a year writing about your day, about your thoughts, about your emotions, about what you want. Just 15 minutes per day writing. By the end of the year, you will have spent thousands of minutes writing. Now imagine doing that for four years. You will start to have a lot of clear thoughts, lot of introspection and understanding why you do what you do, why you don't do things you don't do, and you'll be able to articulate yourself in a way that people can... better understand the complexities of you. Then another thing that helped with it was, again, I tie it back to this moment I had when I was 15 and I was looking in my bathroom mirror and my face was all puffy. I was sleep deprived. I had acne. I hadn't been outside in weeks because of the COVID pandemic. And I started crying and asked myself why. Like, why did I go through all of that? Why when things seem to get better, they get worse? Why do I feel as if no one cares? Even though I have people who do. I have my mom who cares, I have my therapist who cares, I have my family, I have, I had a girlfriend who cared. Life only, you know, aside from it being a pandemic, was pretty good. You know. I had food in the refrigerator, I had a bed to sleep in, I had siblings. You know, life wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good. And I began realizing that the reason why I felt this was this mental tape recorder that kept playing over and over in my head of things my dad would say to me. or things that kids used to say to me when I was growing up. And in that, I rubbed, 'Lawrence it's up to you to change this' Because if we can have a tape recorder in our head that's playing all the bad things, what if instead we figured out how to change this into the good stuff? And I got obsessed with things like Tony Robbins and Island Watts and Charles Hamilton and all these like... metaphysical, spiritual books and motivational speakers and like meditation practices and I've tried everything under the sun and what I found works the best for almost every person who's tried them journaling, exercise, go outside because if you stay stuck inside physically you're literally inside of a room all day. in a box and you feel upset and you're not getting fresh air and you're not getting sunlight. That's going to create chemicals in your brain that make you more sad. If you're not journaling it's hard to be aware. It's hard to be self-aware and understand yourself to a really deep extent and exercise creates happy chemicals in your brain. If you feel good and you look good and you think good, life will become better. And you journal and you become aware of what do I want? And you go outside and you see, yeah, I might be in debt right now. I might be going through a tragedy in my life, but the sun is shining. I'm not living in a war zone. I have all 10 fingers. I'm not blind. I can become grateful for the simplest things because I've been through worse. Every day when I'm upset or I'm stressed out, I just tell myself, Lawrence, you've been through worse. Let's pause here for now. If something in this first part stirred something deep inside of you. a memmory Take a moment and sit with it. In part two, will dive deeper into how to rebuild your identity from inside out. and what it truly means to live as if you are already enough. when you are ready, join us for the next part of this powerful journey. And if this spoke to you, make sure to subscribe to Life and Leadership Connected Podcast so you don't miss a single episode.