so scared...

Lovely flight to the US! I enjoy these long hauls, for you are trapped into doing what you please for 10 hours—forced down time. Albeit I did some work for there are deadlines waiting for me when I return…

I was able to do more journaling via hand, as well as reading. I zipped through a book that my Dad gave me a few years ago, (Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?) and to be honest if I read it then it would not have had the reaffirming impact it had yesterday. Funny how we embrace things at the right time!

The book is about being in touch with your feelings, how to navigate the adult-child-parent trifecta we have emotionally and how we act. And how some are

…so scared: for "I am afraid to tell you who I am, because if I tell you who I am, you may not like who I am, and it is all that I have."

I have battled this and I hope that I am becoming better at it. To be so vulnerable with someone takes a lot of trust and love, unconditional love. Even more so, it takes a strong sense of self and self esteem to do this, realizing that only we own our emotions and cannot be held responsible for other’s emotions (and we cannot hold others responsible for how we feel). And, that we do not judge others and the actions they take, even if it is from a place of pain and fear. Compassionate understanding of another, unconditional love, is scary, for it requires us to be naked, totally naked.

On the flip—how does one start in sharing “who I am”? Is the pay off worth being emotionally naked with another? And what if they cannot reciprocate? Then what?

Well, I think looking at it as a pay off depends on what meaning we assign to the words “pay off”: if it means we grow as an individual, empowering the other to grow and embrace who they are, then yes, absolutely! Even if things do not come to fruition, even if the other cannot do it and things must cease for a while, to love unconditionally and accepting another is powerful and the essence of humanity. If reciprocity is not there, it is only because one is not ready and it is not a reflection of who we are… trust the process, the beauty will unfold when it is time.

question: what is your fear?