Introducing the Lovely, Talented, Dynamic . . .

What goes up must come down!  What's inside must come out!  Is there someone trapped inside your body, kicking and screaming to come out?  Some lovely, talented, dynamic person, who longs to be introduced to the world around you and be greeted with warm and welcome applauds?  When I typed the first sentence of this post, I had a slightly different plan.  My every intention was to string this post together with my last two and talk about how and why our internal conflicts, if not addressed, eventually reveal themselves in our external environments--home, work, church, and in the varied social settings we find ourselves.  Then, a sudden shift occurred.  Rather than focus on that inner conflict that will inevitably make its way outside, it just felt right to, instead, focus on that person, sometimes inside of you and sometimes inside of me, who's yearning to break out.  That person inside of us that we all sometimes hide because we're afraid of what our worlds will think if they knew that's who we really are.

If you think about it, this, too, is a conflict--a difference or disagreement within you that keeps you from peacefully moving forward with who you are and who you want to be.  Not that the person we see and know when we see you is fake and not, necessarily, who you really are, but that person may not be all there is to you.  But the problem is that by not being  all of who you are on the outside might mean that you're keeping the best parts of who you are on lockdown and hidden away in darkness on the inside.  The "total you" may be wasting away and plummeting deeper and deeper into an abyss of non-existence.  Meanwhile, the people and the world around you are severely deprived and starved of the beauty and wonder and contribution that the "hidden you" is supposed to be depositing into the lives that the "full you"; the "free you"; the "best you" is supposed to fulfill.  And that is nothing less than a tragedy.

Listen, we all have our fears and insecurities about what people will think if we expose more or all of who we are.  But guess what?  Based on what you have exposed and who people believe and think you are, they still may have it all wrong in terms of who they believe you to be, and they may not even like that part of you that you have already revealed.  So, the best thing you can do for yourself is to find that person that may be buried deep inside of you--that lovely, talented, dynamic person that you may have forgotten about and who's been battling to break free--and introduce them to the world and allow for your own grand entrance.  The time is right, and the time is now for you to definitively and unashamedly put your stake in the ground, and boldly declare, as in the words of renowned singer/songwriter, Kelly Price that "This is who I am"!