You're GORGEOUS INSIDE!

On a walk one morning, I saw this real-estate sign posted in front of a house and thought, "I WANT A SIGN LIKE THAT!" A bumper sticker...a name-tag...SOMETHING! It sounds silly, but I swear that house actually stood a little straighter; a little more confident. It was a beautiful house on the outside as well, but that didn't stop the seller from inviting the world to look on the inside, where the real living happens.  Where they would be comfortable and safe; where they would love and be loved; where they would be vulnerable, and creative, and cleansed and fed. Where they would be real and messy and at "home" with their families. It was an invitation to go past what we saw on the outside and step inside, where the good stuff is! 

I thought it was a brilliant metaphor for how we present ourselves in the world. How many of us would be bold enough to boast a "I'M GORGEOUS INSIDE" sign? It requires a great deal of humility to invite others to see us on the inside; to be that real and willing to be seen in ALL of it. The truth is, we ARE gorgeous inside, in all of our humanness and messiness, but the "signs" we tend to drag around more often say things like, "NEEDS WORK", or "REDUCED TO SELL", shouting our Self-judgments rather than celebrating our true beauty!

I promised myself that day to replace my "FIXER UPPER" sign with a brand-spanking new "I'M GORGEOUS INSIDE" sign and I remind myself daily that I'm always growing, changing, evolving, becoming, but WHO I AM, is and always will be, beautifully made. And so is everyone else! 

I do believe I've walked a little taller, been a little kinder, and smiled a whole lot more ever since.  

STAYING PRESENT!

My husband and I just returned from a get-away excursion to Tulum, Mexico...it was heavenly! Turquoise water, white sand, and a quaint little cottage we found on-line. A quaint little cottage with no AC, a rattly old ceiling fan, and barely running water. I'm definitely spoiled to my creature comforts! But we acclimated fairly quickly to what “was” (or wasn't) and remembered our foremost intention in going was to recoup, regroup, and unplug from the world.

Sounds easy enough, and considering Tulum is off the grid for the most part...solar powered, with only generator back-up...it should have been a cinch. Yet, we figured out exactly where to stand in the room and how far to lean over the balcony to get a WiFi signal, depending on the time of day. We laughed at ourselves at how far we'd go to “plug back in”. It was just silly. It took effort to resist the temptation to stay “tethered” to technology and get all the way present, but we did it! And it made me acutely aware of how unconsciously "plugged in" we are in every day life. Note to Self.

It was so automatic to reach for our phones and I kept wondering, “What would we do if we didn't have the option?” What if we couldn't pick up a phone for directions, or pesos conversion, or the meaning of a word? We'd have to rely on our senses, our communication skills, and definitely on other people. Another note to Self.

No judgment, just noted observation of how often our dependencies and habits prevent us from being completely present, even when we're exactly where we want to be, doing exactly what we want to do, with exactly the people we want to be with. And then we saw it...

Driving along that beautiful coast, windows down, sun on our face, completely content in the moment; when out of nowhere there was a big, bright orange, diamond-shaped, very-official traffic sign on the edge of the road that simply read: “STAY PRESENT”. It didn't say “Slow Down” or “Narrow Shoulder”, it literally said, “STAY PRESENT”. That was it! Just STAY PRESENT.

Um...okay. Wow! Doesn't get much clearer than that.

Noted. Noted. And noted!