Tag Archives: being myself

22

How To Be Yourself

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I-AM-who-I-AMToday, I am grateful that I have little regard for what anyone else thinks about my beliefs and actions. As we develop through childhood, it becomes more and more challenging to be who we are. We are programmed from our earliest days to fit into a particular form. Anything that doesn’t work exactly like that isn’t acceptable. Making people feel inadequate about who they are. It can become a lifelong affliction if you aren’t careful. Today, I am grateful that I don’t care what anyone else thinks about who I am and what I do.

Building Your Cage

l_32a839e0-91bc-11e1-99e7-f9ed17800001You are worrying about what other people think is a full-time job. When you are younger, you worry about everything. How your hair looks, what you say, how you walk, the clothes you wear, and any other aspect of your existence can be judged. You begin building your cage when you start to construct those things to be the least offensive or give the least amount of fodder for others to pick on.

This cage doesn’t seem too harmful at first. The bars are constructed with every compromise you make with yourself about what you let the world see. An opinion you keep to yourself to avoid a conflict up goes a bar. Actions you take which go along i_don't_care_what-99410with the crowd, even though you don’t believe it right, up goes another bar. Bars start to be constructed so quickly that you don’t have time to notice the cage you have placed yourself inside. One of the expectations of others is the worry you won’t fit in. The fear that your true self will be seen and then rejected. Over time living like that is who you think you are, but that isn’t true. You are not in a cage. You are free.

Breaking Free

Me, I lived in that cage for a lot of years, pretending not to notice the limitations of life. The worst part is that you forget the parts of yourself that you were hiding from the world in the first place.

Something started to happen in life, and events began to occur, reminding me of something I couldn’t remember. Who was I? Why didn’t I seem to have the correct answer to those questions? That is the beginning of breaking out of that cage.

i-dont-try-to-get-other-people-to-approve-of-meRemembering who you are shouldn’t be as hard as it is, but you begin to see the cage disappear when you start to remember so quickly that you wonder why you let the cell encompass you in the first place.

Today I am Free

To be free is when what you think and how you behave is your true self, and I am living with that thought. I believe what I know in my heart is right, and I do what I know is right, and I don’t let the idea of what someone else might think to stop me.

The fear that my authentic self will be rejected is almost totally removed because I realize it isn’t my job to be liked and understood by everyone else. The thoughts and issues others have with me are none of my business.

The type of person I am in my heart is my business, and I take my business very seriously.

So hate me, love me, ignore me; it is your choice. I do give a flying fig, newton, what you think. And I mean that in the right way. I am grateful that I don’t care what others think of me. It’s time to break free. 

 

 

21

Authentic

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real meHow much of your time is spent being an authentic you? How much is spent acting like you feel our culture determines you to be?   How is that identity even established? What difference does it make?  So much of our time is spent developing this persona, which, when examined closely, isn’t very real at all.  We create this imposter ourselves by trying to fit into the roles our culture demands.  Go to college, get married, have a career for thirty years, retire and wait to die.  If it isn’t time to let go of that false now, then it never will be.

False Self

Each day there is an image of myself that I imagine the world sees.  What precisely the idea entails is a mystery. I certainly hope that intelligence, kindness, and caring are a part of the picture.  It is not the substance that concerns me, and it is the inability to ask for help or even appear vulnerable that is bothersome. There are times when people get lost, down, and dangerously sad, but still put on a convincing smile and hide the pain and suffering you are feeling.

The pain and suffering are what they are. Each person has found their own story of this anguish. Although nobody would call pain and suffering good companions,  they can supply a sufficient education and help develop a depth of character that didn’t exist before. Kindness is no longer a word but an action. Understanding someone’s actions comes far before judgment because of my education in this area. Recognizing the false self isn’t who you are but who you think you should be to fit in.  Put all the thoughts of others aside and start to listen to your intuition about what will make you happy.

I Let It Go

letting go 2It has become time for me to let go of what others think and what I feel about myself because of the fear that others might contemplate my choices, decisions, and thoughts. For the first time in my life, I have to embrace who I am, faults and shortcomings included.

I feel that only by doing this can I move forward, away from the falseness of the past and toward a future that includes an honest reckoning of what I want to accomplish in life.  Time to let go of the expectations that I feel others have built up in my life, embracing the contribution that I can make that matters is only as myself. Not a prefabricated idea of a person that is only an illusion of living.

The True X Marks the Spot

In all of the greatest stories about treasure, there is

What treasure is located at your X?
What glory is located at your X?

Always a map, and at the location of the great treasure, there is a giant X.  There are many twists and turns on the path to get to this place, and often danger exists. I think that my true self is a lot like that. There is a valuable treasure of gold if you can reach the X, but getting there has been a tough road, sometimes fraught with danger and difficulty.  Inside there were more profound struggles than anyone on the outside could know.  I feel like slowly, but surely the X is coming into view for me.

Have you found yours?