What if you could simply be just you?

In my life, I have spent many minutes, hours and days trying to be something I was not. I was always someone who wanted to see the good in the world. Even as a young child I did not understand the concept of bad and yet there bad was. 

I had done something bad. My brothers were doing something bad. Of course bad equalled punishment of some sort. I remember telling two of my brothers to stop what they were doing because I didn't want to see them get into trouble. They were not as concerned about it as I was.


 I also remember crying as they were being strapped. I cried for them and I cried for me. Of course I did my best to be "good" so that I wouldn't be punished. It didn't always work out!

My dad was not a "bad father". He was only doing what he thought he needed to do, just like his father, so that his sons would not turn out "bad". 

I almost did the same thing with my second son, until his older brother stepped in and told me to stop. I wasn't using the strap but I was going to spank him. 

I had mistakenly given my power to an authority, in a book that declared if you didn't have control of your children by the time they were five, then the teenage years would be horrible. 

My youngest was a strong personality and he was born to be awesome-not perfect-just awesome, just as we all are. Each of us holds a gifts to offer the world and they may not be perfect but they are just what is needed when the moment arises. My oldest son used his gifts of compassion and fairness to advocate for his younger brother. Thank goodness! I never lifted my hand to him again. He turned out imperfectly awesome!

Isn't that what we all are? When did you stop being you? What if by being you-unedited you could change a life and the world?

My oldest son spent the the years between 3 and 13 living with his father who did not understand how awesome he was. My job was to let him know. Somehow, between all the trials and tribulations of "visitation rights" and a very angry ex-husband, I managed to let my son know that he was very okay and I must have done okay because he stepped in stopped me from hitting his brother. 


Along the way he had found a part of who he was and he has stepped into his own awesomeness. 

Soon he will be a father and I know that he will be an excellent father. I am pretty sure he will encourage the expression of awesome in his child. 

You can do that for yourself too. You could let out the parts of you that you had previously considered unsafe.

There are always opposites in this world and if you don't want to be seen as "bad", then you do your best to be good. To varying degrees that was the box I put myself in. It may not have looked like it to some-but that is what was going on. It also didn't serve me all that well sometimes.

Sometimes we need to be a little bad in order to be good!

So where in your life might you be hiding from life because you want to be seen a certain way? Where have you allowed others to define for you who you are? Where in your life have you decided that this is you or not you, and disallowed the many expressions of your awesomeness?

The world is waiting for you and you just might find that life gets more joyous. Isn't now the time to let yourself just be you? 

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