From the Inside Out 

  Sometimes saying yes means letting your toddler have a tent in the living room for a few days. Eventually that tent has to come down though, especially when house guests are due to come and your living room is already small. 

I was prodding A along to get the stuff out of her tent so we could take it down. She was far more worried about taking the tent top off than getting the stuff on the inside out. I explained to her: 

“Honey, you have to focus on the inside before we focus on the outside.”

Although I was talking about the tent in that moment, how greatly that applies to who we are as people. How important it is for us to really focus on the inside more than we are focused on the outside, yet so often we know that we can put on a fresh look and hide away the baggage on the inside. We can dress in nice clothes, put our make up on and act the part when on the inside there’s a storm going on that we hide so well. Just like the tent A was trying to put away. It was filledwith  blankets and dollies and pillows. While we could have taken down the outside first and tossed it away to deal with another day, it wouldn’t have rolled up and stored away like it should have and it would have been more work later.. Just like when we put the stuff we need to focus on, on the inside on the back burner as long as things look good outwardly. 

I find myself drawn to genuinely happy people. The kind of people that just radiate from the inside out. It’s the happiest people with a genuine small on their faces that I find myself going “wow. She’s gorgeous!” It doesn’t matter what she’s wearing on if she’s make up free or not, all of that becomes void. It’s the person that you see is confident in their skin and genuinely happy right where they are. Do those people have their own baggage? I would assume so, we all have some level of something going on behind the scenes but I think it’s all about how we choose to deal with it on the inside. 

If we choose to have a grateful heart that loves and welcomes others even when it’s not easy. 

If we look at where we are in this moment and know with all of our being that even if it doesn’t make sense it’ll be okay and there’s a reason for all things. 

If we accept that we all have our stories and lessons learned that have formed us today, and embrace them instead of feel ashamed or judgemental. 

If we simply work on being the best versions of ourselves, the outside becomes just a reflection of this inside.