Notice what has already changed: Recognize the quiet evidence of growth already present.

We spend so much time noticing where we still need improvement or change that it is often difficult to see where we have changed. Yet somewhere in your life, something that once felt hard probably feels a little more natural now. Mayb…

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The Courage to Receive: Open your life to whatever comes next.

Over the past four weeks, you’ve practiced something our world doesn’t often encourage. Instead of striving for more, you’ve paused to receive what was already here. You’ve opened your hands, welcomed yourself with greater compassion, noticed life’s quiet gif…

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The Courage to Receive: Open your life to whatever comes next.

One of the hardest things we ever do is trust a story before we know how it ends. But that’s really what life is all about, right? We want certainty before we move forward, guarantees before we hope, and answers before we begin. Yet every meaningful chapter o…

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The Courage to Receive: Open your life to whatever comes next.

When we hear the word abundance, it’s easy to think only of money or success. But abundance is also found in meaningful conversations, deep friendships, laughter, health, creativity, quiet mornings, and the freedom to choose how you spend your time. The riche…

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The Courage to Receive: Open your life to whatever comes next.

Love doesn’t always arrive in dramatic ways. Sometimes it’s a friend who checks in, a stranger who smiles, a pet who curls up beside you, or someone who remembers something important to you. Yet many of us have become so accustomed to protecting ourselves tha…

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The Courage to Receive: Open your life to whatever comes next.

Sometimes the very opportunities we’ve prayed for arrive with uncertainty. A new beginning, a difficult conversation, an invitation that stretches us beyond what feels familiar. Our first instinct is often to hesitate until we feel completely ready. But readi…

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how well we really know anyone. We like to believe we’re great judges of character (at least I’d like to believe I have this powerful sixth sense), especially of those we hold dear to our hearts. We appreciate the people in our lives who make us laugh and show up when we need them. Because we love them, we make space for the generous and the tedious. We know whom we can count on. We feel sure about this. The friend with a quick wit, a beautiful smile, a successful career, a good heart.

We collect all those pieces and trust that we know who this person is. The whole person. And most of the time, that’s how it all works out. Everything we see stays consistent.

Until it doesn’t.

We’ve all had moments when we learned something about someone that didn’t fit with anything we thought we knew. The more serious or disturbing, the more we question whether we really knew them at all. The more we question our own ability to truly discern good from evil.

That happened to me recently. I learned something truly horrible about someone I knew, and really liked, mind you. I have friends who are close to this person, and ever since, I’ve been trying to understand what to do with the two versions we now know. They should not be able to co-exist, and it’s thrown our world off its axis.

The person I know is funny, accomplished, helpful, and kind. That is real. But apparently there is another part of this person none of us saw.

That is real too.

And I think that may be one of the hardest things to accept. When something like this happens, one of the first things most of us say is: “I guess I never really knew them at all.”

But is that actually true? Maybe we did know them. Just not the full and complete them. We knew only what they were willing and able to show us, to share with us. We knew them from the way they treated others through our experiences together. And unless there was some reason to believe otherwise, why wouldn’t we believe that was who they were? I don’t think most of us move through life assuming the people around us are hiding some enormous secret.

We take people at face value. We have to take people as they are. It’s our only choice to remain sane and happy. Otherwise, trust would be nearly impossible. Relationships would be nearly impossible.

So the kindness and generosity we saw are real. The friendship is real. That person who held someone’s hand through a difficult time is real. That person who built a successful business is real.

And something else is real too. Something dark and hidden. Something we didn’t know. That is a much harder truth to live with than simply deciding the whole person was fake.

Because if it was all fake, then the story we tell ourselves becomes easier. Hurts much less. We were fooled, artfully deceived. Nothing about them was real. End. Of. Story.

But what if the good parts were real? Then, what do we do with the good, once we discover the bad? This is the part I keep coming back to. What happens to everything we liked or loved about someone once we know that terrible thing about them?

Do we erase them? Rewrite our shared story? Do we tell ourselves that the kindness wasn’t really kindness at all because we now know something else about the person? Or is there a way to be grateful for the good parts while abhorring the bad?

If someone comforted you when you were hurting, you were still comforted. They still made you laugh, encouraged you, celebrated your successes, dried your tears. And you still cared about that person.

Learning something new may change how you feel about those memories now. It may make them uncomfortable. You may question everything. But that doesn’t mean those moments never happened, and I think there can be something reassuring in that. We don’t have to pretend that everything good was a lie in order to acknowledge something terrible has happened.

The good is real. The bad is real. I wish human beings were easier than that, but we aren’t.

I first heard what had happened from a friend who had known this person well. She was angry. Horrified. I understood. I was too.

Then she shared that this person had been abused as a child. Because of my years working in child welfare, I shared my thoughts out loud as I processed our conversation. I know how deeply abuse can affect a child and how complicated those wounds can become later in life for some. So my mind went there. I talked about what childhood trauma can do to a person and how experiences like that shape what comes later, both the overcoming of the abuse and the succumbing to the abuse.

And almost as soon as those words came out of my mouth, I felt uncomfortable with what I was trying to say. Did it sound like I was explaining away what this person had done? Making excuses? Or worse, did my friend think I was telling her that her anger was too harsh and that she should somehow be more compassionate because of what this person had endured?

That wasn’t what I meant at all.

Her anger makes sense. Her horror makes sense. She had been this person’s friend. She had her own history with them, her own sense of betrayal, and her own feelings to work through. She didn’t need me to reinterpret any of that for her.

So I apologized. I told her I wasn’t trying to tell her how she should feel. I was simply trying, too quickly, to make sense of something that didn’t make sense to me at all.

That moment has stayed with me because it reminded me how easy it is for understanding to sound like excusing and for compassion to sound like judgment when someone else is in a very different emotional place. We were both trying to absorb something horrible. We were just doing it in our own ways.

And that’s the key here. There’s not one correct emotional response when someone we know becomes someone we no longer understand.

I have thought a lot about the different ways people react when something like this happens. Some immediately want distance and disconnection. Some are furious, feel betrayed, and worry about how the personal and professional association with this person will affect their lives.

This fear is real too.

I don’t believe we should rank or compare our reactions. We respond from our personal histories, our relationships, our fears, our experiences, and the shock of realizing what we’ve been told. Because the bottom line is we’re unique humans first.

We spend years building relationships, trust, careers, businesses, and reputations. Then someone else’s actions can suddenly make us feel exposed, even though we did nothing. Wanting distance in that moment isn’t cruelty or abandonment.

It’s self-preservation when things are uncertain. Off-balance.

We only know what people show us. Maybe that’s the bigger ah-ha for me. We don’t know anyone completely. Even the people we have known for years. Even the people who sleep beside us, work beside us, celebrate with us, or call us when something goes wrong. And humans are messy.

We only know what someone shows and tells. They know what we show and tell. And most, if not all, of us keep some secrets to ourselves, closed away. Regrets, Embarrassments. Choices we wish we’d never made. Times we hurt someone or handled something badly, or simply knew better than to do it but did it anyway. And we face the consequences, even the small and impersonal ones. We lose trust. We damage a relationship. We carry guilt (probably longer than any of us should). We learn something the hard way.

For others, the choices are far more serious, and so are the consequences. But none of us moves through life untouched by what we choose. We all must live, from one degree to another, with the outcomes of our choices.

But all of this reminds me that we all carry more than what is visible. I don’t say this to suggest we need to be suspicious and untrusting from this point forward. I certainly don’t want to live that way. Maybe it simply means remembering that the version of someone we know is never the whole person.

Perhaps we hold one another a little less tightly, more realistically. Admire those we love without turning them into someone incapable of disappointing us. We can love what is good in them without convincing ourselves that we know what occupies every room inside them.

And maybe we offer ourselves that same grace.

I’ve been thinking about this through the lens of authenticity too. Surprise! Fearless authenticity, at least for me, has never meant telling everyone everything about me. We are allowed privacy. We are allowed to have parts of ourselves that belong only to us (or maybe a few others we trust).

Authenticity is not complete disclosure.

I believe it’s something much more nuanced. It’s a willingness to tell OURSELVES the truth. Knowing what we’ve done, what we regret. Knowing where we’ve failed. Taking responsibility for what belongs to us. And understanding that one part of our story does not necessarily describe the entire human being we are.

That doesn't mean every action gets excused. It doesn't mean every relationship survives. It doesn’t mean trust automatically remains. Sometimes what we learn changes everything. But perhaps it does mean we resist the temptation to gather an entire human life into one word. Good. Bad. Victim. Villian.

I don’t think I have an answer to how we move forward in a time like this. Not every difficulty has to teach, transform, or change who we are. I don’t need to know what this will mean tomorrow, next week, next month, next year.

Maybe moving forward begins simply by allowing ourselves to keep the memories that were real without pretending we know what to do with them yet. Right now, I can say: I know someone who made me laugh. I know someone who was kind. I know someone who accomplished things and helped people. And now I know something about that person that I can’t reconcile with any of that history."

Maybe I never will.

But maybe I don’t have to erase one truth to acknowledge another. What I know was real. What I didn’t know was real too. And sometimes moving forward means learning to live with the fact that we didn’t have the whole picture.

None of us ever do.

This Week’s Invitation

This week inside Morning Pause, we focus on living differently not by changing who you are, but by moving through the world with a heart that no longer has to grip so tightly. The courage to receive becomes a way of being.

Our Wednesday Moment to Notice asks one simple question

What are you ready to stop resisting?

If you’d like to join us, we’d love to welcome you.

About the Author

Laura Johnson created Fearless Authenticity, where she explores self-trust, grief, growth, relationships, and the stories that shape who we become.

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The Courage to Receive: Open your eyes to life’s quiet gifts

We spend so much of life reaching toward what comes next that we sometimes overlook what has already arrived. There is love you’ve already experienced. Wisdom you’ve already earned. Strength you’ve already discovered. Beauty already surrounding you. None of thi…

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The Courage to Receive: Open your eyes to life’s quiet gifts

Somewhere along the way, many of us began believing that rest had to be earned. We finish one task only to immediately look for the next. Even when we pause, our minds continue working. But your value has never depended on constant productivity. Think about it.…

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The Courage to Receive: Open your eyes to life’s quiet gifts

It’s interesting how quickly we prepare ourselves for disappointment and how slowly we prepare ourselves for joy. We rehearse what could go wrong (I call it contingency planning) but rarely imagine what could go beautifully right. Hope isn’t naïve. It’s a willi…

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The Courage to Receive: Open your eyes to life’s quiet gifts

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The Courage to Receive: Open your eyes to life’s quiet gifts

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The Courage to Receive: Open your heart to yourself

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The Courage to Receive: Open your heart to yourself

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The Courage to Receive: Open your heart to yourself

We often treat emotions like problems to solve instead of visitors to welcome. We rush to explain them, distract ourselves from them, or convince ourselves we shouldn’t be feeling them in the first place. Yet emotions aren’t asking for perfection. They’re asking to be a…

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The Courage to Receive: Open your heart to yourself

So many of us spend our lives trying to hide the parts of ourselves we believe are too much or not enough. Yet those imperfect places often become the very places where compassion grows. Your mistakes have taught you. Your disappointments have softened you. Your scars t…

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The Courage to Receive: Open your heart to yourself

There is a quiet kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly trying to improve yourself. We chase the next lesson, the next breakthrough, the next version of who we hope to become, believing that someday we’ll finally arrive. Growth is beautiful, but don’t let it conv…

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A little more than two years ago, a friend encouraged me to share my story about living my life on my terms. So, I did. Then I rewrote it. Then I edited it. Then I put it aside. Then I sent it to HuffPost. Up to this point, I had never submitted anything. I mean, why me, right?

Looking back now, it was not “Go Big or Go Home” confidence that spurred me. It wasn’t that I thought it was HuffPost caliber at all. In fact, I chose HuffPost knowing they would never accept it. But I could still say I had tried while remaining safe and anonymous. I wouldn’t have thousands more people questioning choices I was tired of explaining and defending.

But the editor got back to me, asked for some updates and changes, and said if I were willing to make the changes (at least some of them), he would consider publishing it. Yikes! I panicked and put it aside. For the entire summer, it sat there, untouched because I was too afraid to make the changes and send it back. By the time I sat down with it in the fall, I figured I had once again shot myself in the foot and missed my opportunity. I mean, I had deliberately let months go by.

I’m still not sure what I was most afraid of: that he would choose not to publish it after all? Or that he actually would publish it?

Then it hit, and thousands of people from all over the world read it. I decided not to pay attention to the comments. I remember Brené Brown sharing that when she first started writing publicly, she struggled with the negative comments. Overly focused on them. I could imagine doing the same and promised myself that they wouldn’t take over my life. I will say that HuffPost is really good about managing the comments and quickly removed anything that was cruel or otherwise inappropriate. But, true to my word, I didn’t let the negative comments take over my life. I was actually really proud of that. I am to this day.

I decided that not everyone was going to agree, nor did I need them all in my corner. In addition, the public exposure didn’t feel as personal as I had expected. I didn’t know these people and kept myself at a safe distance by not responding to anyone, good or ugly.

But the biggest gift was that I found more people who related to living single than I had ever imagined. It’s funny how easily we allow the people closest to us to tell us what a successful or meaningful life is supposed to look like. But, beyond them is a world filled with people living their personal versions of fulfillment.

So, some understood exactly what I was trying to say and thanked me for putting words to a life they had chosen or were only beginning to imagine choosing for themselves. And to be honest, others were less generous. I’ll admit that I paused on a few. But only paused. And chuckled a bit. The ones who suggested I was single because no one wanted me. Or I was selfish. Or fat. Yeah, one guy looked at my picture and decided I was fat. But I didn’t stay there long. I knew what I believed, and I wasn’t going to allow strangers on the internet to make me question that.

It took courage to put myself out there in front of thousands of eyes and judgments. But it had also taken me a long time to get to where I believed that being single wasn’t a waiting room, a failure, or a minimizing life situation I needed to explain away.

Looking back. I was brave. But I read it differently more than two years later. I write differently more than two years later. I have changed more than I realized, and that has surprised me. I feel like I reveal more of the emotional costs in life’s choices, whether mine or others’, and sit in the contradictions more comfortably without running away. I used to worry about saying one thing and then saying something a bit different later. But that’s life. We learn and grow and change. Hopefully. Some things get fixed while others stay broken, and we move in, out, and around it all.

Two years ago, I tossed my essay into the air and turned to protect myself from what might happen next. Today. I would stand, arms full and wide, welcoming what comes. That’s big for me. And I only just realized right now that change in me and my writing and why I share what I write. I feel safer allowing people who live differently to misunderstand me or view my life through their own lens without feeling responsible for changing their minds.

None of this came from publishing one essay. It happened through everything I lived afterward. It was life continuing to move forward. It was the relationships I began to see more clearly, the boundaries I finally held, and the losses that forced me to confront how quickly life changes.

I see my relationships much more clearly. Two years ago, I was more willing to overlook behavior that hurt me if it helped me remain accepted or connected. I’m not willing to do that anymore. And I feel strong enough to actually set those limits and not continue to allow those who have gotten used to my doormat behavior to balk at the real me, however off-balance that makes their lives.

And I also lost someone whose steady presence had been part of my life for decades. I grieved him more deeply than I could have imagined, not because we had an emotionally intimate relationship, but because of the quiet security of his predictability. I didn’t notice its significance until it was gone.

The thing is. Life changes. We change. We grow. We learn. We struggle. We lose. We survive. We win. And what hit me, and I knew this already, of course, but living through these past two years made me face it again: life doesn’t remain the same from one year to the next, even when it feels as though nothing is changing.

Last year, I would have said I was afraid of what was ahead of me. I know we can’t predict and don’t really want to know, but I was afraid. I’m not afraid of what might be ahead of me now. I’m afraid I will miss what is most important by sitting and watching. I finally truly understand what my mother was trying to tell me when she said: “You think too much.”

I feel at the precipice of all that has been and what is yet to be. I can continue sitting, watching, and waiting, or I can stop treating my life as something that is about to begin. I want to be fully present for it.

Today, I trust the ground beneath me. I can admit that independence and loneliness can sometimes sit in the same room. I can love the freedom of my life while still wishing, at times, especially the challenging times, that someone was sharing that space with me.

Perhaps that’s what truly living fully and freely is about. I can value the life I chose without smiling through the tough times. I think that’s what confidence has become for me. Not the absence of doubt or the refusal to feel hurt. Nope! To those who doubted that I could ever be happy alone: you were wrong. I can be. To those who believed I would not always be happy: of course you were right. No one is.

Not every choice I make is perfect. But I’m confident in knowing that doubt can visit without leaving a mess in its wake. Someone can misunderstand me without shaking my conviction, and I can hear an opinion without surrendering my own beliefs.

Why did I feel this was so important to share? Because change happens whether we feel it, see it, or miss it completely. You may believe you are still struggling with the same fear, the same relationship, the same patterns, or the same questions. But stop and really take it all in.

What are you willing to admit now that you couldn’t admit two years ago? What still frightens you but no longer controls every decision you make? What behavior do you recognize sooner and maybe even stop now that you see it plainly? What would an earlier version of you be surprised to see you doing right now?

Perhaps the evidence of change is not found in how different your life looks from the outside. But instead how you stand in the center of it. I still have doubts. I still struggle to be understood. I still wonder whether I have shared too much or not enough. But I trust myself more than I did just two years ago. I’m less interested in proving that my life is right and more interested in living it fully. I’m no longer simply defending my choices. I’m living and expressing them. And that’s how growth happens. Quietly. Gradually. Invisibly. Continually.

Until one day, we look back and realize we have been moving closer to our truest selves all along.

This Week’s Invitation

This week inside Morning Pause, we’re exploring how often we push away the very things we say we want. Sometimes receiving begins with noticing what we’ve been refusing.

Our Wednesday Courage Conversation asks one simple question:

What do you find hardest to receive?

If you’d like to join us, we’d love to welcome you.

About the Author

Laura Johnson is the creator of Fearless Authenticity, where she explores self-trust, grief, growth, relationships, and stories that shape who we become.

Subscribe now

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Peace often arrives quietly, yet many of us meet it with suspicion. We brace for the next problem instead of resting in the present moment. Today, if life offers you five peaceful minutes, let them be enough. You don’t have to fill every quiet space with planning, worrying, or doing.

✨ Today’s Mantra

Today I receive peace…

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Compliments can reveal more than confidence; they reveal our relationship with ourselves. Notice how often you explain, minimize, or redirect praise toward someone else. Humility is beautiful, but disappearing isn’t. Receiving appreciation simply acknowledges the goodness another person already sees.

✨ Today’s Mantra

I re…

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