It seems like we expend an awful lot of energy trying to “fit in”, which can mean a lot of different things depending on where you are right now. It changes significantly depending on who you’re with and is often fueled by the winds of just a few.

I’m also aware that many of us spend a significant amount of time trying to get noticed, impress others, and have value (ascribed by someone else’s measuring stick). In the “fitting in” and “getting noticed”, we often lose our identity, because we chose to abandon who we really are in lieu of who we want the world to think we are. There’s no Godliness in that; no acknowledgment of our hearts’ true desires. It’s simply our human brains longing to “be part of the group”, to “be like the leader” and to “feel valuable”.

Baring our souls often seems easier than baring our true feelings. When you’re talking about your non-physical self you can use language like, “These are my core beliefs. This is how I feel about God (or faith or the afterlife)”. When you’re exposing your true feelings, however, you have to be willing to use language like, “this—what I’m saying right now—is truly how I feel.” It requires a willingness to reveal your foundational truths and needs as a human. There’s a difference. Can you hear it?

If you ever sewn anything as simple as two pieces of fabric together (let’s say a pillowcase) you know that you merge the material with thread. Putting it together is pretty easy, but if you decide you want to use that fabric for something other than a pillowcase, removing all those tiny stitches and pulling out all the thread is pretty tedious.

That’s not unlike us. We’ve “sewn together” a pretty tight story of who we are. And, unlike when we were children or young adults—who were expected to keep evolving—we get stuck as that pillowcase because that’s what we made out of the fabric of us. Eventually, we don’t even consider taking it apart and creating something new—it would just be too much work. So, the status quo continues and we spend our lives as someone we circumstantially evolved into, but someone we never intended to be.

Peace-full living is, of course, about how we live in the spaces we inhabit. But, peace-full living is more about leaning into life, not just casually brushing by it in the race for the next best thing. Peace-full living is being courageous enough to stand up and speak our truths, even if we’re sharing them with only one other living being, even if we’re staring into the mirror and telling them to ourselves, even if we’re sitting quietly, alone in the dark, with God.

It’s the articulating of our truth that gives it power, and wings to fly on.

When we take a chance, and dare to find out who we are—not the cut-out, glued onto a popsicle stick version that we carry around and hold up in front of our faces when we’re “playing the role”—but rather the human that God has given extraordinary gifts to; gifts we often don’t even acknowledge because we don’t think they are the “right, special or valuable enough gifts” that we think others have, we live into our highest selves. And, that, at the end of our time on this earth, is what really matters.

Please help spread the word of peace full home® and invite your friends to our peace-filled conversations.
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