Revealing

Today I am grateful for a warm and cozy bed and for my husband beside me in it. I am also grateful for my job and how it challenges me.

As I journey through the alphabet, my first stop at "R" is with REVEALING. This post has nothing to do with revealing secrets or revealing photographs. I don't believe I have any secrets that would be all that interesting and I certainly am not one for taking revealing photographs. The revealing I am writing about is "more will be revealed." Learning more about oneself, about those we love, about the mysteries of life.

By the time I reached a comfortable place in my adulthood, I had peeled back many messy layers I had accumulated over years of self-hatred, self-pity, perfectionism and active alcoholism. It took time before my true self was revealed to me. Today I appreciate it for the gift that it is.

For me, the revealing came slowly, with effort, and with a growing peace. But it was that effort and the time it took that helped the layers come off when they were ready to, when I was ready to peel them away.

The gratitude practice I began in earnest nearly twenty years ago has proven to be one of the best ways to reveal my true self. A self I am at peace with most days now. And in revealing the world as I see it today-a place with challenges for sure, but a place full of hope and opportunity.

Peeling layers. Revealing self. Practicing gratitude to let fresh air heal each layer as it comes away.

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