Of all of the things I’ve attempted to do in recent years to heal myself and stay grounded, perhaps the hardest thing was to learn to see myself truthfully to see my own truth.

I lived for a long time in my own myths, and one day I was made to see that I  had lost perspective on my self, my life.

My shrink paid me a high compliment, she said she had never seen anyone work as hard as I did to understand who I was.

It has not been a pretty or simple journey, but it has been an important one.

I was fortunate to have several people still around me to tell me the truth about how they saw me, and it was a revelation, in many ways a deeply troubling, even shattering one. Therapists did that also.

I learned the painful consequences of being blind to my own truth, almost  everyone I knew seemed better, holier, and more loved and successful than I was.

I saw  beauty and love in others because I could not see or recognize or accept any of these qualities in myself, it seemed grandiose and far-fetched to me. To love oneself is not  grandiose, it is essential to loving others well.

I had fallen into the habit of depending on others and failed to see that I had everything I needed to live my life within me. I could stand on my own two feet.

I understood early in this process that I could not force myself to see what others see. I had to do a lot of work myself to understand the truth about who I was and where I was in life.

The spiritual author Henri Nouwen says “you have to be willing to live your loneliness, you incompleteness, your lack of total incarnation fearlessly” in order to see yourself truthfully.

I had to trust that life would bring me the people who would keep showing me this truth about who I was until I believed it and accepted it.

Life did just that. I am getting close.