Real Is Better Than Perfect…

On my drive back from Lexington, Va this past week, I took that 4 hours to really reflect on my heart!  There has been a lot of things on my heart lately and it has been GOOD friends… soo many good things!

There’s something about driving and the silence and rhythm of the drive that allows you to search your heart and really get to the depths of it that brings clarity.  That drive… it allows you to finally pull at those heart strings and hear the song of the soul!

And as I was driving on Friday the sun kept coming and going through the rain.  It was the perfect melody to the words on my heart;  allowing some parts to be a bit dark with a heavy percussion and then uplifting with a grace and ease as the sun would shine and rise out of the trees providing light and air and a breath!

I’ve been singing a lot (and loudly) about this realness:  Real is better than perfect!  I’ve asked for people to join in and let down their guard and let go of this need to show up with a sense of who we feel our community and “our people” want and need us to be!  I’ve asked that we shed our desire to BE for them and show up instead wearing our hearts and our vulnerabilities for all to see.  I’ve especially called on us as mom’s to do this!

I’ve called for this because in my heart, I truly believe that THIS is the only way that we can truly connect with one another!  If we can be REAL with one another then we can learn to love and appreciate each other for who we really are, our stories and where we come from and the potential for who we can be!

As mother’s especially in this time right now, there are so many opportunities for us to judge ourselves or feel that very heavy weight of pressure!  We don’t need other’s to do it for us, we can do it all by ourselves!  I know… because I am guilty of this myself!  It’s like that heavy rain that poured down with such a heavy drum beat on my car… it comes so quick and so fast that it can be absolutely blinding at times and it can be scary if you are left all alone to drive it by yourself.

It we join together in this beautiful community and let go of this facade of perfection and decide to come to the table together, we can make a difference!  If we, together, meet with one another and embrace our real lives and our real vulnerabilities;  if we can share our stories…  that my friends is like the sun shining through and shedding light down for all of us!

THIS is the kind of light I want to be.. this is the kind of REAL I want to be!

I want to be the kind of real that shares who I am and where I come from.  I want to share my heart:  all of it, not just the some of it that I think people want to hear or “is acceptable” and I want to share it any time someone needs it!

My story isn’t a perfect one.  My story isn’t the kind of raw story that is so impactful it will bring a house down into tears and move mountains.  My story is just mine!  I embrace it and maybe it will help one person who is like me out there but if I hide it away, we will never know.

Every day I feel blessed to be a mother and there is nothing more in this world that I have ever wanted in my life, but there are times that I lose my patience and times that I need to put myself in time out (and times that this non-drinker might jokingly wish for some vodka)  THIS is just how parenting goes and it’s nice to know I”m not alone!!!  It’s nice to know that we all have “those days” where we feel like what has happened!

Those are the days I want to have a community of support that we can tap into so we can lean on, laugh with, run to or at least just take a slow long deep breath with!  A community that says… YES my friend… I have been there too!  Let me send a little love your way so you know, it’s OK.

THIS is the light I want to be… I want to take my story and this light I have and this love I have and I want to shine it out to as many people as I can and as far as I can!  I want to encourage as many other people to do the same!

Will you be brave enough to say I am not perfect and as much as I adore this life and being a mom.. it IS hard but yes, it IS the most amazing role I have ever been gifted to have?!  But it’s not perfect?!

Will you?!  Will you join me at this table and this community and share your stories and shine your light?!