Embracing Your Differences.

I stood there making my espresso this afternoon, gazing out my kitchen window watching the fall leaves float to the ground, and the name came back again, racing inside my mind. The name kept playing over and over again, my heart sank. Then the lyrics and melody “Sticks and stones may break my bones”… echoed loud and clear.  I broke down and surrendered into this song, tears fell.  Yes, “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt you.”  True, words will not physically hurt you, although as an extreme empath and everything else, being called a derogatory name hurts your insides to your core.

It’s this interesting process you go through, well at least I do.  I play it over and over in my mind and then I am reminded to not take it personally.  As the process continues “Oh it’s not me, it’s them! I am a mirror for that person, it is not me!  I am not that word! I don’t care what they say, I’m amazing, let it go!” and so on and so on…Do I look up the definition on my iPhone,  you betcha!  I want a clear Webster Dictionary explanation of the name “Fruit Cake!”  As I read the definition, hum “I’m not insane (not officially anyways ha), I’m not actually a cake with fruit in it, hum.”  I read on….ahhhh my eyes gently glide across the words on my iPhone.  There it is, the word that has followed me all my life “odd.”  Well, this word has come to test me once again.  “The odd one, the one who is off, the black sheep, she beats to the own sound of her drum, oh she is out there.”  The list is long.  I guess over the years the sting is less and less, although a sting. It still captures my attention.

I guess that I just don’t understand why the labels, why the ridicule, why the names?  I can’t say that I have never called someone a name,  that would be a lie, although pretty much throughout my life I don’t see differences in others.  You could be purple and I wouldn’t notice for awhile and when I did, I would not care.  You could be blind and I would be in awe of how you were out walking with your walking stick all by yourself.  I see the good, I see a glow, I see your light.  I welcome differences, I find so much color and interest in them, so much beauty and magic, so much to offer.  So real.

I have always been odd and I have grown to love myself deeply.  I have been 170 lbs and I have been 95 lbs, I have been at my highest high and in severe lows. I know how it feels to have nothing, no money for food and I know how it is to be well-taking care of and not worry or even think about money.  I know how to work very hard and not at all.  I have traveled to so many places in this world and I have felt the four sides of a cage, with no key.  I welcome and embrace so many facets of myself, I truly am multidimensional, as we all are.  Although like you, I’m here, I am human and the words still hurt.

I leave for Peru in 3 days, with my eyes wide open, welcoming all there is to come, all the beauty and all the magical differences that will surround me and move through me.  To be in the state of welcoming and surrendering, all at the same time.  My heart is filled with gratitude, honor, respect and most of all kindness.

Don’t we all need to be a little kinder today? A little softer towards the ones we love or perhaps do not even know?  To accept and embrace the odd parts of ourselves and know we are blessed, to stand true in our own convictions and let those stinging words roll off our back “Like water off a duck’s back,” as my grandma use to say.  I clearly visualized this today.

Take pride in ourselves and know with every fiber of our being how strange or imperfect in someone else’s eyes that we appear to be, they do not see the truth, our truth.  If they only could see our immense depth, they would truly see how magnificent we all are, the derogatory words would seise.