Parker Palmer writes that "The only way to become whole is to put our arms lovingly around everything we’ve shown ourselves to be". Today, I'm seeing this in a new light, discovering with more depth that I am loving and infuriating, disciplined and irresponsible, caring and wounding to others, easy-going and obsessive, thoughtful and forgetful. I can be vibrant, hurtful, boring, confusing, maddening, inspiring, unbelievably annoying, wildly unreasonable, spiteful, deceitful, trusting, dedicated, principled, forgetful, fierce, loving, lazy, generous. I can act with deep intelligence and astonishing stupidity, even when I am most dedicated to taking care of others, and of life.Some years ago the idea that I needed to be perfect and always good started to undo (I wrote about that here, a year ago). Now, what seems to be crumbling is a project, often hidden to myself, that has me imagine I can always make sure people are ok around me. And as this crumbles I can see more clearly that my very being alive means that I cannot control how others around me will experience me or the things I do. People will be brought to life, inspired, but also frequently hurt and disappointed around me - simply because I am, and often as a direct consequence of what is most deeply loving and most fully alive in me.The more I see and welcome about myself - my light and my darkness, my brokenness and my imperfection - the more here and whole I seem to be. The less ashamed. The less afraid. The more able to take responsibility and care for others. The less in denial about who and what I am. And, I hope, the more able to be with others in their broken, imperfect, wild and beautiful wholeness too.I'm seeing what I can do to live with my arms wrapped around all of it.