They say you can't go back....

Except that's where I want to go. Not in the "Back in Time" way, but to that moment in my life where I really truly didn't care about what people thought. Not in a Judd Nelson/Bender "Breakfast Club" way, but more the Anthony Michael Hall/Richard way. You know at the end Richard pens this letter to the Principle. Simplistic, Honest, Vulnerable and Concise.

I remember a time in my life that I had achieved a very similar acceptance of myself. Or maybe My Self. Along the way I partnered with someone who had yet to accept Her Self. Know this, I am not writing this out to assign blame, only writing it out to understand where I lost my Self. What I have discovered is this - I began to believe that I was responsible for her. In pretty much all aspects of Life. I know now, and am learning again, that I was not, and am not, responsible her her. Nor anyone else. I am only responsible for myself.

Part of that responsibility is to share my Truth. More simply to express Honesty with my feelings, what I think and KNOW that how the other person responds says more about them than it does me. I am responsible for how I deliver my Truth. I know I must take every effort to be kind.

As a person who can let his emotions get the best of him, and with a lot of history of intense emotional blowback, I know I need to find the right moment to express my truth, my feelings, my vulnerability. After being trained to do the opposite (keep feelings inside) for nearly two decades, pushing into truly sharing has been the most difficult challenge of my life. I've become so incredibly scared of what people will think, but most importantly, how they will react.

My experience is that when my feelings or truth are expressed, when I'm being vulnerable, 'they' leave - emotionally/physically. In order to keep them close, I've learned that it's not good to share. I couldn't have been more wrong.