Today we’d like to introduce you to Eyolf Woolf.
Eyolf, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started out was a fluke to be honest. My spouse of which I was married to for five years, finally came forward with me and expressed how hard it is for him on the Internet because he doesn’t feel he can express himself truly in Foley without fear of retribution or judgment. And it broke my heart quite frankly.. I’ve always been someone who is extroverted high energy, open minded and a born leader. I struggled with bullies really bad through school of which is made me want nothing more but to be invisible. For me myself, my personal values and self worth have never been dependent on others. I’ve spent most of my life along as I ran away from home at 15 from a very abusive and horrible childhood of which I was abuse sexually from 6 to 10 years old. I’ve been shot stabbed beaten. I asked for help no one ever came so I ran away from Georgia to Michigan where I finished high school on my own homeless mostly. As you can imagine this lifestyle would have been very challenging for anyone thankfully, I’ve been able to push through and see the light side of things which is the beauty in helping others. So I started promoting transparency, as well as positivity, kindness, self expression, and just generally I try to remain as blunt and authentic to what I’m feeling or expressing at the moment not to get people to get on board with my message. Rather I don’t have family or any kind of family since I’ve ran away. No one in my family knows where I am at so that being said, I don’t have the fear of my family being judged or me losing a job or you know even embarrassing anybody for what I do or say on the Internet. So I feel like somebody’s gotta do it and why not it be me so I go online and I find things that people you know may seem weird to some people but to a lot of people they’re just trying to express themselves and we should all feel entitled and safe of judgment and retribution when we want to express ourselves. Most people are too terrified to even fathom what that would look like so my mantra is #BeTheExampleOfChangeToCreateChange. All I’ve ever wanted to do is make a difference in this world ever since I’ve seen Bill Clinton come on the TV in elementary school and asked the kids of America if we could all just do one thing to help somebody that we would change the world. So ever since then I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that. I wanna make a bunch of money when I grow up and give it away lol. I love to see people coming together in a community and I love to see people working together and functioning. So so I’m really good at getting my message conveyed through photography or through my writing. I love a number of things like music art but mostly I just love to help people.. there’s so much negativity on the Internet these days so I thought how about I take the negativity of which I have an abundance of put it out on the web as if it’s a journal that no one will read, but can obviously. I just want people to feel like no matter what when you feel alone it’s 100% almost never true. You convince yourself of that and that’s a horrible scary place. I don’t want anyone to go through or experience any part of which I did and feel like I did and do still. So many people have reached out to me on the Internet because I just leave my communication open for them in the event that anyone needs to talk to me or speak to me whether they know me or not. Sometimes the most important words you can say is nothing and smile and just be present. I tell people all the time sometimes the loneliest place in the world is being surrounded by thousands of people screaming your name. It’s OK not to be OK all the time it’s OK to ask for help and be forthcoming with your struggles. Real strength is someone who can feel process and express their emotions of any caliber. Men have always been never allowed to feel their emotions or acknowledge their emotions or talked about their emotions and I am making sure that that is going to change even a little. I personally feel as if I can’t express myself is like sitting on my chest and holding me down prevent preventing me from breathing. And it’s that important to me so it’s gotta be that important to most of everybody out there and if not, at least they see other people going through real stuff and it makes them have courage to be themselves and shine from the inside out, not be afraid to be different than everybody else because that’s the point of life is to be different and diversify and love each each other other. So I just mainly go around and try to find people that need help and try to help them or at least direct them in the in their direction of resources. I just try to do something and share my journey along the way.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I was a very shy kid in the beginning, and it was very very very much. One night I went to bed with 200 Facebook friends and the next morning I walk over 300,000 followers and I couldn’t grasp my mind around it.. in case anybody’s wondering you can’t just delete Facebook and make it go away once they know your face well enough said. There has been some struggles, but not as many as I would’ve expected honestly because every square inch of this journey has taken me to almost every major city in the country and let me tap into our lgbtqia community and listen and learn and grow with them and share. Mind you there’s been a minor setback that I would say cause challenges and struggles. Put on a scale of do I feel fulfilled in what I’m doing or do I feel like it’s satisfying to my purpose absolutely. I care so much about people and all I ever wanted to do is help them so getting out there and meeting them was the first step. After getting out there and hearing them, listening to their concerns and feeling their hearts, I realize what I needed to do to save the world. If we all simply work to save ourselves, we won’t need to save the world and ineffectively have saved the world. So that being said, I try to do it the best that I know how to do it and be very transparent and chart my progress so that people can watch me grow fail anything but it’ll give them a sense of if I can do it, they can do it or if they don’t know how to do it or understand that they can do that so I’m just gonna try to save myself and spread kindness and love as much as possible along the way in hopes that people will get on board and then for the most part they do they just need guidance .
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a singer songwriter by heart. I plan on showcasing on The Voice soon which I can’t talk too much about as of yet.. but I’m very artistic. I like to paint I love photography. I just love going out and exploring and seeing and learning what everything is and doesn’t seem to beauty in it. I’m mostly proud of us with all the starters that I’ve undergone in life even I’m surprised that I hadn’t done something in life because of situational issues that would have prevented and or totally eliminated my purpose and destiny. So important to set an example not to convince people that you’re one thing or another, but it’s convinced people to be themselves and be happy with it and be comfortable with themselves. We shouldn’t want to be like other people. We should simply be happy with who we are and own it because that’s what makes us beautiful and individual and without that I don’t know where the beauty in life would be..
How do you define success?
Failure isn’t setting out and trying something to overcome and falling short. Failure is when you don’t simply try it all. when you take never out of your vocabulary you will always, always, for always succeed and that’s my definition of success. Failure isn’t what to find us. Success defines us off of how we get up after we fall.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/woolfeyolf
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WoolfEyolf
Image Credits
All credit is Eyolf Woolf
