{"id":3885,"date":"2015-04-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/if-i-could-give-each-person-just-one-gift\/"},"modified":"2020-05-11T20:49:10","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T20:49:10","slug":"if-i-could-give-each-person-just-one-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/if-i-could-give-each-person-just-one-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"If I Could Give Each Person Just One Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"giftcenter\"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

If I could give each person just one gift, it would be the gift of being able to truly see themselves through the eyes of the people around them.<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong> It would be a sobering gift, for sure.\u00a0 And it would require a great deal of humility and stabilizing self-talk to be able to handle the truth, but man would that change everything!!<\/p>\n

Some of us would see our awesomeness.\u00a0 Some of us would see our selfishness.\u00a0 We might see our greed, our lust, our addictions.\u00a0 We might see our mean, cutting words or no words at all as we struggle with the ability to do intimacy.\u00a0 We might see that we make promises we can\u2019t keep.\u00a0 We might see that we are the common denominator in many of the problems in our lives \u2013 and maybe even see that we are the only one who doesn’t see it! \u00a0We might see that we are addictive and use substances, people, work, or just plain busyness to kill our pain.\u00a0 We would probably see that the very thing we are complaining about in someone else is also something that we do ourselves.<\/p>\n

Whatever it is, my wish is that we could see ourselves the way that we really are – and learn to love ourselves.<\/strong> <\/em>\u00a0I don’t mean love ourselves by loving what’s not good about us, but love ourselves by understanding<\/strong> <\/em>all aspects of ourselves – good and bad – just the way that we are. \u00a0We would be able to cherish the good parts of ourselves, and strive to improve the not-so-good parts of ourselves.<\/p>\n

So why is it that this would be the gift I would choose? \u00a0I believe that you cannot truly be free until you see yourself fully and completely – and humbly. \u00a0I don’t even think we can find true happiness as long as we are trying to deny or hide the not-so-good parts of ourselves. \u00a0\"the-truth-will-set-you-free-jpeg\"We all want to see the good side.\u00a0 That part we usually accept readily. \u00a0 \u00a0Seeing the not-so-glamorous or, let\u2019s just be real here, the downright dirty, sinful side of ourselves is pretty ugly sometimes.\u00a0 None of us wants that to be true, so we reject it and draw attention to the pretty side instead \u2013 even to ourselves. Living in that place of shame and denial is a prison cell that we have locked ourselves into.<\/strong><\/em> \u00a0The only way to free yourself is to see you for who you are and then decide if there is anything you want to change or not.<\/p>\n

So if you want what I consider to be the greatest gift,\u00a0 you are going to have to look<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Look at what your spouse has complained about.\u00a0 Look at what your reviews at work have said.\u00a0 What have you argued about with your friends?\u00a0 What are sensitive topics for you?\u00a0 Are you too prickly and argumentative?\u00a0 Or maybe you don\u2019t have any opinions at all because you are too eager to please everyone around you.\u00a0 Then you get mad because you feel controlled.\u00a0 Maybe you don\u2019t get outwardly angry, but perhaps your head is full of venomous thoughts about other people.\u00a0 Maybe you manipulate other people or make jokes at their expense so that you get the glory of making everyone laugh.\u00a0 Perhaps you have a victim mentality and attack those around you for not meeting your expectations (which you probably didn’t voice). \u00a0\"girl-looking-in-mirror\"Maybe you lash out at the very people you want to come close to you.<\/p>\n

If you are unwilling\u00a0to look and see what might be true about yourself, there is no way you will develop that part of your character and you will never be fully free.<\/strong><\/em> \u00a0The world has been trying to show it to you.\u00a0 Do you have the courage to look? \u00a0It could be the greatest gift you can give yourself!<\/p>\n

[su_youtube url=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zWovBRNRtn4″]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I could give each person just one gift, it would be the gift of being able to truly see themselves through the eyes of the people around them.\u00a0 It would be a sobering gift, for sure.\u00a0 And it would require a great deal of humility and stabilizing self-talk to be able to handle the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21,22,24,16,15,30,18,36,38,1],"tags":[1668,1669,1670,522,1671,1077,1672,1050,1673,439,460,1170,1674,1675,1242,420,1676,743],"class_list":["post-3885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addiction","category-affairs","category-anger","category-codependent","category-depression","category-family-counseling","category-individual-therapy","category-marriage","category-self-help","category-shame","category-uncategorized","tag-best-person","tag-best-version-of-yourself","tag-building-character","tag-communication","tag-free","tag-freedom","tag-gift-to-self","tag-good-person","tag-greatest-gift","tag-growth","tag-healthy-marriage","tag-healthy-relationship","tag-how-to-get-control-of-my-life","tag-integrated-character","tag-kathy-henry","tag-recovery","tag-see-yourself","tag-self-examination"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4488,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3885\/revisions\/4488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}