I have a very well-formed habit.
It’s like an old, worn-in pair of shoes that my feet just naturally slip into.
It’s a habit of being small. A habit a living small.
Now, it’s not that I haven’t done anything in my life. The life within me just couldn’t help itself.
I went to a great University with a hefty scholarship. I graduated as the scholar of the year in my department. I worked as a business consultant. I got a master’s degree. I got married. I have children.
Like I said, the life within this body just couldn’t help but go after those opportunities when given the chance.
But, I’ve done all of these things in the smallest way possible.
Every step, every effort, every accomplishment has been weighed down by hefty loads of self-doubt, intense fear of failure, and a suffocating sense of never having done enough.
A picture of a small quivering fragile person hovering on the cusp of failure is a self image that I’m very accustomed to and one that feels downright comfortable – as miserable as it may be.
In fact, for years I claimed that image as my “personality.”
I am insecure
I am unconfident
I am not that capable – I just work hard
But thanks to some brilliant, unfathomable grace, I’ve started to see the real me in recent years by way of debilitating anxiety and severe mental health struggles such as intrusive thoughts
And let me tell you, the real me has nothing to do with all of that personality bull shit that I just listed.
The real me is a humming, pulsating stroke of life that came into the world to express itself in a unique form and to thrive.
It’s the same force of life that lives and moves your body and the physical forms of every other living thing on the planet.
Think about a flower for a moment. It starts as a tiny seed in a mound of dark and damp earth and then at just the right time, it unapologetically bursts through the soil as a tiny green sprig and then it blooms into a glorious and unique flower only then to fearlessly wilt, die, and return back to the dirt
You see, the life that lives the flower is the same life that lives me.
The main difference between us is that part of my makeup as a human is the superpower of an imagination that is capable of imagining that I am something other than that life
An imagination that based on years of conditioning and learning and goodness knows what else forms an image of a fragile little self that is always on the verge of coming unglued.
Well, I’m really quite tired of pretending to be almost unhinged.
I’m ready to just be me.
And I am brilliant.
So are YOU!
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