being your true you ...with friends

i love the internet. it gives me the opportunity to look at beautiful things and beautiful pictures of beautiful things. i love fb. it allows me to create albums in which to house the multiple pictures i have of all the beautiful things i enjoy looking at and reading.

the other day a friend of mine was looking at my albums and laughed indulgently because they were "so me". i chuckled too, a little. she knew me and my sometimes weird sense of beauty, she understood its value to me ...beauty. she chuckled because she knew me and loved me anyway. i chuckled because i realized that as she chuckled.

while i am not always in such a good place, generally i like me. i think that is a good thing because i am the only person with me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. true, i am on a journey to be a better me - but at least i am always starting from a good place. a lot of us, however, don't like ourselves or at least don't like ourselves enough to not change for others. that is why it was such a gift to realize my friend knew me and liked me just the way i was. she did not expect me to change for her and i did not feel i needed to change to be accepted by her.

we, as women, need to figure out who we are and then...so long as who we are does not hurt others or our planet... go with it. we need to embrace who we are and then go along the journey of our true selves. otherwise, what is the point? if we live a false life, being who others want us to be, we are living half a life....an un-actualized life. that is not fulfilling and can cause us to, eventually, crack wide open.

once you discover who you truly are and come to love and accept yourself, it will feel blessed and joyful to share your true self with others...and true friends will embrace you proudly. they will be proud of you, proud knowing that you are willing to stand in this world as your real self. those that don't, those that aren't are probably not sincere friends in the first place and thus not worth any of your regret. instead, remember, it is hard to be true to yourself in this world of cookie-cutter people. having the courage to be you is novel, unique and scary so to do so successfully is beautiful. a thing to indeed be proud of.

so find you...your smart, creative, funny, loving, gentle, kind, strong, powerful, healthy, harmonious you and let her loose on the world and share this wonderful you with your friends. then, together embark on the journey of a lifetime, a journey of friendship and growth and  love and exploration and kindness and curiosity about everything... together.