My Burden. My Gift.

Today will be a bit different.

There are stories I carry that not only haunt my nightmares, they pepper my days with a brokenness and hurt I like to convince myself no one else will ever understand.  But I don't recognize them as stories.  I carry them like a well worn satchel, always at my side, pulling, almost clawing with it's heavy burden and relentless malice. 

Maybe I am a loser... Fat... Dumb... Hopeless...  Maybe I'll always be lonely...  Afraid... Shy...  A failure.  It's almost as if I'm not even capable of a positive thought.  One which will finally lead me to the peace I endlessly seek.  The peace which seems to elude me.  Always.  

"Why do these things happen to me," I ask?  Constantly and chaotically.  Why does this cancer of my being eat at me and seem to endlessly remind me how inadequate I am?

I don't want to listen anymore.  "You're wrong," I shout internally and it echos as if bouncing off the walls of an empty cistern long forgotten and dry for millennia.  I'm relentless with myself.  The negativity I have toward my character, my body, and my behavior doesn't give me a moments rest from the hatred constantly directed inward. 

Suddenly, for just a moment, I breathe.  I feel the air fill up my lungs, expand my diaphragm, and I imagine the breath filling my body with life.  LIFE.  My life.  One gifted to me by a noble and infinite creator who knows much better than I what He's doing.  I remember that I'm here for a reason.  I'm not my faults or falls.  I'm not my resentment or my pain.  I'm not even my body.  I am me.  The only me in existence.   I'm a finite being with a unique set of skills, talents, gifts, and blessings.  Me.

I've spent so many years behinds a curtain of lies, I haven't given myself the chance to see who I am beyond the curtain.  It's frightening on the other side.  I am scared to look beyond the tapestry of my stories and explore who I can be beyond the darkness of my self inflicted prison.

My heart is so much bigger than my story.  As it floats through this simple life set before me, I hope to let my heart swell with truth rather than lies.  To spend more time dwelling on the beauty of all that makes up my being rather than the sorrows of regret and self pity. What's happened has happened and I can't change it.  But I can grow from it.

I've hidden my heart in shadows for way too long.  There's an ease with which I lean toward self assault.  In sharing my scars and using them to move myself forward, I am bold.  I feel emboldened.  I recognize the gifts I've received from the time my heart spent adrift and I use them to make me stronger.

Today, I am me. I am enough. 

Remember Who You Are

Often, as men, we forget who we are.  I got so many phone calls this week from men who I think just forgot.  I wouldn't be so audacious to say the story is always the same, but I will say, more often than not, the problem is more internal than external.  Something doesn't go right, or we get uncomfortable and suddenly we're evil, bad people who can't find our place and don't deserve anyone to rely on.  We're lonely, angry, sad, and afraid and our whole being becomes lost to the lie of who we think we are when we're at a low point. 

For better or worse this seems to be part of the human condition.  The relentless cycle of humanity. We stand up, we fall, and hopefully we get back up again. It seems way too easy to get caught up in the lie and live life behind the tinted glasses of how we think the world sees us (based mostly on what we think of ourselves).  Some people get so caught up in their faults and mistakes, they don't like the reflection looking back at them in the mirror anymore.  All of this because we tend to look at our flaws.  When was the last time you looked in the mirror and tried to only concentrate on your positives?  The last time you consciously tried to see the good you wear on your face and your sleeve, or the ones you carry in your character beneath the surface?

It's great to have people and friends around who can pick you up and remind you who you are.  People who can point out the you which you have forgotten or overlooked.  But there will also be the others.  Those people who bring you down and who remind you of your faults, your mistakes, and point out your shortcomings.  For these reasons we can't live based on outside input alone.  A positive self view needs to come from within.

This can be rough though, because I know my faults more intimately than anyone else.  The way out, I think, is not letting those faults or unfortunate instances define me.  It needs to start with a recognition that I am good.  I'm worthy and I have value, right now, in this and every moment.  Nothing I do and nothing you can say, can take this away from me.  It's a positive self belief, which sometimes I forget, but is always there.  Being good, worthy, and having value doesn't mean I'm perfect in any way.  I don't feel arrogance about them. I recognize when I do something wrong and I try to make necessary changes to right my wrongs.  I move on and I connect to my positive inner self who is good.  Who has got this.  I got this! 

How much better would our lives be if we remembered to keep practicing this?  If we bring ourselves up and out rather than down and in.  You?  You are great!  Today, as you are.  When I stop being limited by who I think I am I can start growing into who I know I ought to be.  When you stop forgetting and know what to remember, the sky becomes the limit.

When it comes to others, help him remember.  Help him do it on his own so he can remember even when you're not around.  May we all learn to remember who we are and shine our light unto others who need the same.