‘Thank you for being you’, read the note that came along with a book that arrived as a gift from a friend-client-human.
I hung onto that note.
Though the words may seem like nothing special, I read them as if for the first time when that note arrived. And I felt something new and meaningful in them in a way I hadn’t before. Partly, I think, because I knew he really meant it.
We live in a world in which there is an endless conversation about changing, fixing, or improving ourselves. From the latest anti-ageing cream, to becoming more ‘spiritual’, to learning how to feel happy all of the time, the message is the same:
You are not ok as you are in this moment.
There is something to be found in considering the possibility that we can be loved exactly as we are, however we are, in every moment. And not only that we can be loved for that, but that it can also be a gift to others.
That’s easy to allow in when how we are in a particular moment matches the vision we have in our own minds of how we’d like to or think we’re supposed to be. But what about allowing that in when we’re feeling inadequate, ugly, or in an emotional state we think isn’t acceptable?
What if, even when we were feeling at our worst, others saw beauty and perfection? What if, in our moments of greatest self-criticism, someone, somewhere, was feeling grateful for us being just as we are?
It feels almost impossible to comprehend at times, doesn’t it, when we consider all the ways we think we’re not enough or ways in which we think we need improving? But one tiny moment of realising there might be truth in this is enough to crack your heart wide open.
Could it be true, that there is nothing for us to do except be ourselves?
The funny thing is, that in receiving that note from my friend, I in turn was filled with gratitude for him being who he is. In sending that gift with that note, he was being the person I’ve known him to be since the day we met – thoughtful, sweet, generous, kind, observant, insightful – the list goes on.
We are all circling around one another, like billions of little suns, each one of us a brilliant flash of light on planet Earth. Sometimes, one light recognises another light and that’s when we say,
‘Thank you for being you.’
Love and courage,
Leah
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