What new insights are emerging for me?

Finally, after 54 years of living, I am learning that making myself small serves no one, least of all me. The new powerful and shining me does not scare people away as I had feared; in fact quite the opposite is happening. And as I live and love, shining bright from a stance of gratitude and abundance, everything I give away comes back to me thousandfold, most especially love and gratitude. It doesn’t mean “bad” things stop happening, or that I don’t still experience the full range of emotions that come with challenges, but I am better able to accept and feel them without judging myself and let them pass through. Those feelings are no longer in the driver’s seat, but they are respected back seat passengers. Hard times have taught me much about blessings and the goodness in people, and the worse things got for me, the more grateful I became for the smallest blessings (which really were the hugest blessings…a smile or kind word spoken to me, my children, a helping hand, a flower blossoming, a purring cat, a bird at the feeder, a bite of food to eat, a sip of water, a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and access to clean sanitation, to name a few.) I am grateful for this new understanding of no longer making myself small. I do not regret that it took me so long to live into it. The old stories served me at the time, and I was always doing the best that I could. I have thanked them for their service and lovingly released them. I feel like the butterfly emerging from a dark tight cocoon, which I have been in for a very long time. But my new insights show me that very important transformations were at work in the darkness. And those transformations are allowing me not only to be more whole myself, but to begin to truly serve others on a whole new level, and to connect with what I was placed on this earth to do. Yours truly with a grateful heart – thank you for the opportunity to share.