Baring Our Gifts

Baring Our Gifts

Do you have any idea how fun it is to know you? You are so interesting. You are clever and funny. I love your kind heart and your smile makes me smile. Spending time with you makes the day better, brighter, and a heart feel lighter.

Do you know that you make a difference, not only by being here, reading this, but by doing what you do out in the world? No one else makes the contributions you make. No one else brings the gifts and experience you bring.

The world is a much richer place because you’ve been in it being you, doing what you do.

How are you a contribution? How do you know you are valuable? What makes you feel significant?

Recognizing our own worth is something many of us find challenging. Some of us feel insignificant, like we don’t matter to anyone. Some of us feel like it’s only what we do, not who we are that matters in the world. Or we have the feeling we only matter to our kids, or our pets, or some other wacky idea that diminishes us, and our impact.

Sometimes we feel we were an accident, that our parents didn’t mean to have us. Or we think that the world would be better without us in it.

We are wrong.

We are each of us here for a purpose, for a reason, for a fulfillment. Each of us is important.

I used to feel like the world would be better off without me. Curiously, what you thought of me had no impact on what I thought of me. I wanted to hear that you liked me, but it didn’t make me like me any better.

As I grew myself up, I learned a lot about first letting go of hating me, then of disapproving of me so much, then I practiced liking me, and now I find that I love me so much. I enjoy being me most of the time. I love the body I live in. I like what I do most of the time.

As I grew myself up, I learned a lot about how to change my thoughts, to change my attitude. As I practiced being cheerful and looking up instead of being glum and feeling down, I found that I stayed healthier. It is so much easier to do my Clark Kent job when I don’t buy into the idea that it can bring me down.

I open my heart more easily, and that brings me more love.

Now, I believe that I chose to come into this life as it was, with my eyes wide open, so to speak. I believe that I chose the environment I chose, and the path. I believe that the stuff I worked through was for the purpose of writing to you today, to say, when we do our work, our real work, our life gets way richer. We recognize the gifts we bring, and we know that our being here, in the world, makes it better.

How have I changed from feeling like it’s pointless to recognizing the gifts I bring?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 07022013