You’re so Vain…I Bet You Think this Blog is About You

A while back, I had a private message on Facebook from someone who had read my blog posts and wanted to know why I was “airing my dirty laundry’ in public. This wasn’t someone on my “friends” list …just someone who took issue with some of my posts….. or perhaps all of them…they weren’t clear.

At first I was stunned…and angry, but then, slowly, I started to understand why that person…and probably others…feel that way.

It was a difficult decision…and still is…deciding whether or not I should write about specific things. I struggled with the ‘what will people think’ aspect of some of my posts. I also struggled with how much detail to write.

The conclusion that I have come is is this: There will always be people who will disagree with how you live your life, what you say, what you do, what you write. They will try and make it about you…but it isn’t about you…it is about them. To reveal some things about my life will serve no purpose and so I choose carefully what I write. It is a fine balance to determine what will be enough to heal me without being so much that it harms others.

It is only when you have secrets that you can be blindsided…and hurt. Life is what it is: the good; the bad; and the ugly. We must embrace all of it to become whole. To deny or cover up the ugly parts is to try and deem ourselves less than human, which is ridiculous. Remember the old adage “To err is human. To forgive divine.” ‘Tis true. No point lying about it Having ugly bits to our personality doesn’t make us unworthy. It makes us human.

I think it takes courage to face your whole self….warts and all. Most of us like to put all that isn’t perfect in a closet, turn off the light, close the door, lock it and hide the key. I don’t know about you, but there isn’t much of me that’s perfect, so there’d be a whole big chunk of ugly awesome in that closet!!

Burying, covering up, hiding and lying about who we are and what we came from is fodder for all the head doctors out there! You can’t bury ugly things and expect them not to take root and eventually rear their nasty selves. You have to bring that stuff into the light….face it, smack it down if need be…but deal with it. Only then will it lose it’s power over you.

Most times, our ugliness doesn’t come from within ourselves…it comes from without. It comes from what other people have done to us, then we bury it and let it take root….an unwitting participant in their plan to sabotage our lives and damage our souls. That is stuff of broken spirits, which results in broken people.

I was badly broken…I just didn’t realize it. I am working to heal, to forgive, to improve and to laugh again. One foot ahead of the other; one word after another; one story at a time. Slowly, I am reclaiming my power.

So if you are worried about what you might read in these posts…concerned that you might show up in the ugliness that I am still dealing with, all I can say is this: Maybe you should have treated me better.