Day 4 of Gratitude Month.
Today I'm grateful for risk. I've always been such a careful person. This isn't me judging myself, just coming to see myself more clearly. Even when I thought I was a daring, dashing figure, I wasn't. Not really. I always played it safe, hugged the coastline of my life. Daring was another mask I wore to fool the world & me.
In becoming grateful for risk, I have my daughter Megan to thank. I haven't said this to her before now, but of my children, she most perfectly embodies a picture of what risk can offer. I took a real risk in allowing my love for her to stretch past her toddler self. I feared she was most angry, most volatile, most bitter so in opening my heart to her I not only moved away from the coast, but gave the ocean permission to drown me if it so willed.
I sometimes think the Universe just wants us to be willing to risk it all. Because my risk has paid me more benefit than I dared hope. Megan just wants her mother, that's all. She has no need or desire to wound or attack me. Recrimination & judgment play no part in our interaction. She has simple needs, needs I can easily fulfill. She needs me to love her, to accept her unconditionally, to show her respect, to risk showing her my heart, to speak kind words to her, to believe in her no matter what.
For a woman as careful as myself, this at first seemed a huge task & one I wasn't at all sure I was up for. Because on the surface allowing Megan full access to me looked too risky. But somehow I was able to see past the mask she wears & what I saw delighted me as only a mother can be delighted by her child. She's soft in her core. She's vulnerable & doesn't hide that. She plainly asks for what she needs. Her agendas aren't hidden. She doesn't censor herself when she wants to tell me, "I love you," she just risks telling me. This child of mine makes me happy because every day I see, even when she doesn't, how she's unfolding into a more lovely & true Self. And this gives me hope for me.
I'm so grateful I took the risk.
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