I know I’m not making any new revelations or even hinting at something we all don’t already know. But I wanted to take my blog post this month to remind everyone about the importance of being true to their story.

It’s easy for us to be tempted and in truth to paint over the realities of who we are. You see a near perfect example of this on an hourly basis via social media. The highlight reels of the lives we project to the Twitterverse can cause us to want to sanitize and cherry pick the person we present to the outside world. We hear the old call to arms of being ourselves, and it’s almost immediately followed up by an image of someone in a picturesque locale with perfect light and expression. What we don’t see is the 120 takes it took to get that ‘effortless’ photo.

We’ve heard it said hundreds of times, but we – myself included – only walk in our truth up to a point. We hide the cracks, the discoloration, the dark corners and instead slap on a smile, tell a joke, or redirect with a question. We’ve all become masters of deception, even to the point that we can start to deceive ourselves. Consider this our reminder as we roll into the Summer to be who we are…honestly who we are. Not to say we should wallow in our sorrow or be overcome by circumstance. But be true to who you are and walk in your unique story. Don’t run from the things in your past that you don’t like but be encouraged to overcome them, to write a new ending for yourself. Someone, maybe even someone you will never meet, needs your truth…and so do you.