Let's skip the in-between: How I just wanted her to read a Brene Brown book and everything would be okay

I admit I am pretty imperfect. I make my share of mistakes or mis-judge situations or just down right say or do something stupid from time to time. I like to think I own my imperfection and can be the first person who admits to being wrong. However, I sometimes have a hard time allowing others those imperfections as well.

I had gotten to know a woman over the past year who recently just moved out of state. I remember the first time I met her and we talked for over an hour. We got to know each other over time, and I found out that she was amidst a lot of change and turmoil in her life. Recently divorced, she moved out to Denver for a "fresh start" but things just weren't panning out. She had a short-lived romance with a man, her job was on rocky ground and she was battling some depression and anxiety. As the year progressed, our conversations almost solely revolved around her life circumstance. One day, I decided to tell her what I thought she should do about her life. "Just read anything by Brene Brown and you will totally be transformed and it will all be okay!" I leant her Brene Brown's The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are and looked forward to her amazing transformation after reading it.

One year later, the book was returned at my door with a note, "Wish I had read this before moving." Her life, over the past year I had known her, never improved; it only declined further, with more heartbreak, no steady income, barely making ends meet and a depression that kept in her bed often for 16 hours a day. And I thought one insightful book would do the trick to turn her life around. Because I couldn't allow her an imperfect life; I wanted her to have the same joy that I have in my life, with good friends, a caring family, pursuing my passion project and living a comfortable existence. However, after over my own 22 years of personal self-reflection and improvement, since I was 18 years old and discovered Deepak Chopra, I had forgotten that people can be imperfect, heck…they can even choose to live imperfectly! But within these imperfections, each individual has to know inside that s/he are worthy of a life worth living. One's family can say it, friends can say it, a lover can say it, a spouse can say it, one's own kids can say it, books can write about it…but each person needs to know it for him or herself.

I recently took a solo trip to Taos, NM. I popped in my Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith audiobook"Your Life's Purpose: Life Visioning Practices for Activating Your Highest Potential "as I drove from Pueblo to the turn off to Taos. Beckwith said something that I think about every time I awake in the middle of night to a panic attack about "what's next" in my own life. He reminded me something very, very important…that I am unique to this world, that there will never be anything or anyone like me again. No one like me came before, and no one like me will ever be here again. That is powerful stuff! And truthfully it isn't stuff that egos are made of. It is stuff that we are made of…acknowledging our true genuineness and ability to bring forth our own gifts into the world and face our own imperfections with grace and humility.

As much as I wished for my neighbor to know this for herself and her life, discovering this can only happen through her journey, your journey and through my own journey. But just when I feel doubtful, anxious or scared, I think how I have shaped even just my little sphere of life just by being alive and being me. Whether for the positive, or peppered with our many imperfections…all of us have made our own, authentic ripples into the waves of the universe, contributing our own personal gifts, our abilities to love and our resiliency through change and transition.