A LITTLE TOO REAL “You are a little too real for me.” That is one of the nicest things someone has said to me in a long time. Some years ago that comment well might have shattered me. It most certainly would have sent me back into closure. I would have gone back into hiding, reapplying the mask that I had momentarily dared to remove. I lived decades of my life trying to be what I thought you wanted me to be. My protective coating was everything. I had made the equation that to be real and authentic was to be rejected. And so I played the role I needed to play in order to have a small yet tenuous sense of belonging. The problem was that

FEAR AS FRIEND I was listening intently to someone sharing about a deep fear they were experiencing. As I recall they actually stated that it was a deep they “were having.” While staying present to what this person was saying I also recognized that a subtle something was moving inside of me that was equal parts startling and liberating. It first presented itself as the awareness that I rarely find myself in an experience of fear anymore. I do not claim to be totally free of fear. It just isn’t something that has its hold on me very often. As the awareness continued to unfold I could feel how after many years of persistent practice and committed emotional work what has shifted is that I no longer