How to Shed Layers to Reveal Your Authentic Self

I love Fall because it is the season of BURNING. Burning everything that doesn’t fit into my life anymore. Creating boundaries where I need to define my edges. Ending projects and relationships that no longer serve me, and creating space for what is to come.

Fall is the season of shedding, Winter is the season to embrace stillness & silence, nurturing seeds of new things to come, and Spring is the season of birthing new parts that want to be born into the world. ​

You are here to decide if your life, relationships and world are true and beautiful enough for you. And if they are not and you dare to admit they are not, you must decide if you have the guts, the right - perhaps even the duty - to burn to the ground that which is not true and beautiful enough and get started building what is.”  - Glennon Doyle

Your mission in life, should you choose to accept it, is to become the most YOU that YOU can be.  This means disappointing others to be true to yourself.  It means risking being the fool for love, for your dream, for the thrill of being alive.  It means sitting with your pain, without moving to hide it, fade it, or fix it.  It means trusting your inner wisdom, your mighty alchemist, to guide you through your life.  It means standing with failure, without shrinking back, knowing that you have what it takes to remain standing when all else falls away.  It means radically loving yourself in all your forms.  This is authenticity. 

Because the human life is only a journey, with no arrival, each one of us experiences a gap between where we are, and the full realization of ourselves.  This is the delight - that we can rest in the knowing that there is no arrival, only endless growing.  When we realize the truth of this, we can accept it all of it.  The shortcomings, the lack, the desire, the success, the failure, the love, the pain.  There is no chasing or resistance, because it is ALL a necessary part of the journey. ​

The burn is the metaphorical resistance between where you are and where you want to be.  Everybody can get to the burn, but that's where most stop.  When it gets hard.  When it gets challenging.  When it gets tough... most opt out.  They settle for comfort.  They settle for easy.  The settle for familiar.  And life..moves... on.
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But for some, they lean in.  They step into the fires of their own transformation.  They forge forward into the alchemy of their potential.  They surrender into an inner & outer metamorphosis... and by going where few dare to go... they are rewarded with sacred gifts that are only reserved for the daring, the bold, and the courageous." 
​- Branden Collinsworth

Leaning into the burn, and letting go of anything and everything that doesn't serve us is frightening and freeing at the same time.  The most wonderful thing to realize about fear is that it doesn't stop you.  You can do things while being afraid.  This truth is life-changing.  Every single person desires greatness - great love, great health, great life, but few people are willing to do the work that is required to walk that path.  You are not defined by your talent, your skill, your education, the roles you play in your life - you are defined by how much you're willing to give of yourself.  Only you know if you're playing full-out, or playing safe.  

The path to authenticity takes courage, faith, and burning - but through the process of walking this path you discover more and more of your power, your joy, your unique frequency.  The more authentic you become, the more you HUMM, the more you FLOW.  

When it all ends, and you're at the end of your journey, I hope you can say that you had the courage to reveal yourself to the world.  ​

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Related Blogs:
​What is Slow Living?
Open Hearted Burning
I'm Not Interested in Enlightenment