Gracies Blog

God says we need to love our enemies. It hard to do. But it can start by telling the truth. No one had ever asked me what it feel like to be me. Once I told the truth about that, I felt free. Life is too short and there is too much joy in authentic freedom to mess around even for a second being anything other than who you are. Does authenticity come with any guarantees? No. You don’t know how others will react, or exactly what it’s going to mean for you, and you might want to give people a heads up that change is coming. But trust them, no, trust yourself. Authenticity is irresistible, and breeds copy cat acts of truthfulness. Only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth, and that is not speaking it.

Speak your truth, even if your voice shakes, your knees buckle, and the earth trembles beneath you. You will be okay. In fact you will be better than okay. Stand by your principles, and the truth will set you free.  How? You will like yourself much more this way, and your confidence will show. You will be freed from taking responsibility for other peoples’ reactions, free from needing to be liked, free to expand your mind and life in every direction. Maybe best of all, authenticity creates its own momentum and pretty soon your voice stops shaking and your knees stop knocking and all you hear from the earth is her quiet encouragement to “keep going”. Sure, there are costs to speaking your truth. And sure, there are more and less effective ways of speaking your mind. But if you do it skillfully and for the right reasons, and let go of controlling the outcomes, the truth will catapult you into a life of blue sky freedom.

We spend so much time in suspense, waiting for contentment; when I get this much money, when I lose this weight, when I solve this hangup…….. We confuse happiness and contentment. Happiness is a circumstantial roller coaster, and you aren't driving most of the time. Contentment is right and here and now, when you accept what is, stop judging life, stop setting stories in stone. Contentment is yours to claim right now, it relies on nothing and no one. Happiness is lost and found. All you do with contentment is lie back in it’s arms.