What Was Already There

It has only been six and a half weeks since I wrote Living as Me. And yet, I feel so different.

I am no longer looking to fix myself every time I feel something.

Which honestly feels kind of weird. But it is something I am getting good at. Definitely better.

I am still allowing myself to feel. Still experiencing the messy thoughts. But I no longer go into high alert when the old “I’m not lovable” predictive model starts playing out in my head.

The old prediction still appears. I just don’t automatically believe it anymore.

And that is evidence that something inside me is changing.

Maybe I was right:

“Sometimes the greatest transformation isn’t another insight. It’s quietly becoming the person you already knew you were.”

I spent years looking for what was wrong with me. Too many years.

Living as Me began when I stopped trying to fix myself and started inhabiting what was already there.

And maybe that is where my thinking has taken me today: back to who I am at my inner core.

Strangely enough, this is something I have always been clear about.

Love.

Not love in the trivial or purely romantic sense. Love in the real, when-the-rubber-hits-the-road sense.

Love as it is described in 1 Corinthians 13—the purest and most complete definition of love I have ever found:

“Love is patient and love is kind; love doesn't envy.

Love doesn't brag, is not proud, doesn't behave itself inappropriately, doesn't seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails".

And if this is what living as me means, perhaps this is what I need to lean further into.

Moving beyond simply not performing and not chasing. Moving towards actually living this description of love.

Not loving so that someone will give love back to me.

Living as love because it is the truest expression of who I am.

The worker, the parent, the caregiver, the encourager and the builder of better—these are all expressions of me. But they are not the essence beneath them.

The essence is love.

Just love.

And perhaps it is from that state that I become more able to recognise, receive and participate in love when it appears.

Not because I have chased it.

Not because I have earned it.

But because I have finally become more capable of experiencing what was already within me.