Exposed 🙈

What a vulnerable experience it is to allow someone to witness you in your process. No hiding, no sugarcoating, no overexplaining—okay, maybe a little over explaining sometimes, lol— but overall, just exposed in the authenticity of who you are and where you are. 

What a blessing it is to have people in your corner who see you in your fullness even while you’re yet becoming. Who call you higher while honoring exactly where you are. Who share in joy, love, peace, laughter, adventure, and so much more along your journey, and not just at your mountain tops.

As someone who was so accustomed to having to be perfect or accomplish or do the most, it has felt so raw to build friendships around who I really am at the core and to allow those people to see me as I am right now... As I’m in process to my next mountain top. I've consistently had to challenge myself not sugarcoat where I am and not try to explain it away, and not even to try to lean too hard on my previous accomplishments as a rite of worthiness. It has cracked me open and ways and I didn’t even know were possible or necessary. 

The thing that I realize now is that I will always be 'in process' in some way. Whether it’s the process of getting to the next mountain top or the process of absorbing the beauty and the accomplishment of standing on a mountain top, it will always be a journey and an adjustment. So, that means that it behooves me to remove any conditioning that would influence me to hide until I feel like I’m good enough, perfect enough, accomplished enough or anything else. It has forced me to really come to know on a deeper level of that I am worthy, right now today, as I am.. Every accomplishment from here is just a byproduct of who I am at my core, and a cherry on top of my essence. But it does not make (or break) me.

There are so many times when I wanted to run away and hide until things looked better and looked like what I thought to be more presentable, until I realized that who and where I am right now is worthy of being seen in her fullness, by beautiful and safe people.  

And in being received, encouraged, and loved on in this space, it is increasing my capacity to sit with others in their own processes without rushing them to become just because I’m uncomfortable with their current circumstances. I know people say that life is short, and it very well can be, but life is actually pretty long when you think about it from a day-to-day perspective... So with that, I must remind myself daily to honor where I am and to give people the freedom to honor where they are in my presence without additional pressure to be somewhere or someone different.

If life is not a destination, but rather a journey, then a major key to life is cultivating a community of safe people to do life with, who will travel with you through the messy middles... the meat of life, right here, today... not just tomorrow or the next day! And that requires overcoming the discomfort of feeling exposed so you can show up authentic. 🩷