Live Authentically

New Years is coming quickly, and with that many are making lists of resolutions, hoping "this year will be different" but knowing that with human resolutions comes human failure.  Soon gyms will be busy with people hoping to get into shape, diet plans will be started in full force, and then people will fall back into their old ways and the gyms will become emptier and the fridge fuller.  We spend so much time searching for quick weight loss diets, run like a hamster on a wheel trying to fit into a dress by a certain date, only to end up stuffing ourselves with the food of failure, feeling heavier, and emptier all the while.

I didn't post my last blog as it was more of a reflections for myself.  Feel free to read, it's a bit long but just takes about my last year's resolutions and how they played out.  This year, I wanted to do something different.  I don't want to make a resolution, but rather, a life style.  Something that I will constantly work on, try to keep my awareness with, and simply grow and shape into the person I am meant to be.  It all comes down to two words:

Live Authentically.

For the past couple years I've really struggled with this idea of living authentically.  It started in college, not being sure I wanted to go there, I wasn't ready to let myself free.  I didn't want to be attached to a place I had planned on leaving.  Somewhere along the way, I stopped connecting with people the way I wanted to, the way I needed to, the way I was.

Going to Florida made me feel more alive than I have in a long time.  I found myself again, I was happy for the first time in longer than I can remember, I felt whole again.  Connected.

I felt like I had finally come home after being gone for a long time.

What was the difference here?  I let myself simply BE.  I didn't try to hide who I was, or stop myself from doing things because I feared other's opinions or judgements.  I didn't care, I just WAS.  What an incredibly freeing feeling.

Life is far too short to not be fully alive.  Far too important to compromise yourself.  Far too beautiful to contain yourself into a box.  So with a new start, comes an old me.  With new experiences and new people comes genuinity.

As I repeated frequently on the plane ride home, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to proper and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  (Jeremiah 29:11)  Let's join together and live this life authentically ourselves.

Let's be free.



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