Kevin’s Thoughts: Love and Acceptance

So, from an early age we learn to put on a costume or a mask that will gain approval. We substitute real acceptance, for approval of the fake. We trade real love for ego strokes. And then we wonder why we are lonely, frustrated and unfulfilled.

The real you, the real me, yearns for the freedom to be genuine, and for people who won’t shrink away when we are. People who know that you and I have baggage, because they have grown tired from carrying their own burdens too.

People who recognize that we all have have dark moments, because they have them too. Loving and kind people that are done with being isolated and afraid, and want to give and receive love, just like you do.

I think it all starts with accepting yourself. Recognizing that you aren’t perfect. That yes, you have flaws, and that’s ok. Then finding fellow travelers that would rather journey on together with you as broken people, looking to get better, rather than spend one more day pretending that everything is fine, things are great and they have not a worry in the world.

Because in this life will always have worries and things will never be perfect, despite what the TV ads tell you.

I’m working on it. I’ve come to realize that a lot of my head-chatter is wrapped up in believing that I needed to outrun my past, hide my ‘ugly’ and put on a happy face. Maybe like you, the lesson is that running makes you emotionally exhausted, that the things in your past do not define you and that a few genuine tears make your smile real and brilliant!

Is it possible that our scars can help heal, our past need not be active in the present and the love that we need has been there the entire time, waiting for us to stop pretending? I believe it is.