Get Real!

Are you for real?

Be Real.

Really?

“Where is she going with this?” you might ask. Well, last week I heard two comments that caught my attention and gave me pause to think. One was, “I just want to be real,” and the second was, “I don’t know if he is being real with me.”

“Interesting,” I thought. “These are words I hear so often that their meaning is taken for granted; but “What exactly do they mean?” In my mind’s eye I saw two images.

The first was of a person unzipping the suit he was wearing and letting it fall to the ground. After the suit fell to the ground a new suit unzipped, and it too fell to the ground. This went on and on until the person was left standing in simple clothes, radiating authenticity, wearing his “real” self.

The second image was of…

A beautiful young woman once shared with me how she used her talent for art to channel negative emotions.

It was a normal session. We talked for about twenty minutes, and then she began searching through her purse. She eventually found what she was looking for and pulled out three of most beautiful paper cranes I had ever seen.

I was mesmerized by their beautiful colors and then before I knew it, she began to unfold the cranes until they were their original square shape. She held them up for me to see.

Each square revealed a work of art expressing dark emotion. The pictures were dramatic and even a little scary. While in the shape of a crane, the horrifying images were completely undetectable.

I asked her if she was hiding her emotion metaphorically behind a pretty picture, or if she was releasing her demons into flight. I…