The forest never pretends to be something it's not

​Writing has never come easier to me. It's because more than ever it comes from my true nature. It comes from a place of being genuine.

It hasn't always.

There was a day I wrote things to be loved. At the same time I would leave words out for fear they would make me unloved. Back then my writing involved a lot of thinking - processing - filtering. Today, my writing simply involves putting into words the things I experience.

The things I feel.

Today my writing isn't an expression of some version of me; it's who I am.

I've thought about the woods. Nature. And how my first step into a forest brings me peace. Nothing else required but the step, and then immediate peace.

There is nothing pretend about nature. Nothing in the forest prepares itself for my visit. Nothing in the forest is worried I may not like her. She is just the forest. Delighted by my visit. And equally fine with herself if I choose not to visit.

She will not change to lure me in. She will never desire me to change in order to stay. 

I think of my writing that way these days. I'm delighted if someone visits. I'm equally delighted if they choose not to. I'm delighted if somehow my words speak to someone. I'm equally delighted if my genuine nature is not the same as someone else's genuine nature.

I want my writing to be something that encourages us to be our true self, not talk someone in to a different or more loveable self.

I fear our connections with one another are not often enough walks in the forest. I fear they are walks fueled by a desire to be loved and not shared commitments to genuineness. Because for many of us our greatest fear is being unloved; our greatest protection against that is looking loveable.

Even if the loveable me doesn't look like the real me.

I'd like for us all to be more like the forest. I would like for people to know they can visit us, and in the midst of our genuineness feel the peace that allows them to explore their own genuineness.

Too many people have spent so much of their lives being who they thought they were supposed to be that they've never had time to explore who they really are.

They've never been invited into the forest.

I dream of a world that is one day one giant forest.

It starts with you and me.

The REAL you and me.