Unwrap Your Gift


Envision that you have been given a big, beautifully wrapped present. You sit with the present in your lap and admire the decorative wrapping before slowly started to pull at the ribbons and bows and thick, shiny paper, in search of what's underneath. Somehow you instinctively know that, as mesmerizing as the outside is, there must be something pretty important on the inside too. So you keep pulling at layers. 

The paper and ribbons fall to the ground as you fumble with the top, all the possibilities of the gift inside floating through your head as you go. Finally, you get inside the box and start pulling off stacks of tissue paper and layers of this and that and then finally you reach the bottom and find....absolutely nothing. You look up confused and annoyed. 

If this was Christmas, this would indeed be a horrible gift. But it's not. This is your life and YOU are that gift box. It's very likely you've spent a large portion of your life staring at the wrapping. And, if you've lived even close to as long as me, the paper has gotten a little tattered and you're starting to wonder if there's something better inside. 

That's the cool thing about life, you get to fill yourself up with whatever you choose. And there's tons of different ways to go about it. You can be filled with literal things like food and water. You can choose to fill yourself with herbs and vegetables or with drugs and alcohol. Then there's the less obvious things. You can fill yourself with thoughts and opinions...both yours and others. You can fill yourself with dreams and goals. With hate and resentment or gratitude and love. You can also choose whether you gently wrap and delicately place each item inside or whether you cram everything down with both hands until its busting at the seams. It's your box. Or, as I'm sure you've figured out by now, it's YOU.

So take a few moments to close your eyes and envision what you'd like to put in YOUR box. Maybe you need to start by turning it upside down and emptying out everything you already have in there. Sort through it and see what stuff you'd like to put back in. What has served up well until now? What has lead you closer to that person you know you can be? Then recognize that the possibilities of what you choose to fill yourself up with are limitless! Envision each thing you'll put in until you're busting at the seams with your new, inspired self that you always were but just could quite find because you had the wrong stuff in the box.

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