Merry Christmas, y’all!

In my family of origin, we had a long-standing joke about what we called closet gifts: Christmas presents you received but didn’t need or want, so you kept them in your closet for a year and then gave them to someone else.

People like my grandmother, who elevated closet gifting to an artform, had to track their closet gifts carefully to avoid the embarrassment of giving one back to its original giver!

Today, I’m merging this notion of a closet gift with the metaphor of the closet as a place where we hide socially “unacceptable” parts of ourselves as long as possible, or until we drum up the courage to “come out of the closet.” In that sense, everyone is closeted in one way or another — especially those who’ve never been encouraged to “let your freak flag fly!”

But based on our recent experience of coming out as “health dissidents” (for lack of a better term), Beth and I are acutely aware that a hidden truth becomes a gift the moment one liberates it from the closet, benefitting the truth-tellers at least as much as the recipients. Unloading our secret was an enormous relief to us and apparently an inspiration to many of the people to whom we came out. We are grateful to those of you who sent us “thank-you notes” for our closet gift!

So our Christmas wish for you is to find the courage to take a look at whatever is hidden in your closet and pick one thing to transform into a closet gift. The ways your closet gifts benefit others will vary, and may at times seem not at all beneficial, but we are confident that Life as a whole is served when people come out and courageously share their truths.

Which of your “closet gifts” do you feel most inspired re-gift to the world?

Yours in Harmony,
Scott & Beth