I have had to pause to ask myself about my path quite often. What makes each of us unique? Let me tell you what I think. Each of us is born with unique talent or skill that is ours alone. It is given to us at birth, and we need only to follow it to find our purpose in life.
Life isn’t ever that easy, though. From the moment we come into the world, we are met with limits and expectations from others.
Sometimes the limits come from a place of love, like a parent guiding their child safely, and sometimes they come from a much darker experience.
It matters little where the limits come from, and they cause us to be ashamed of who we are and what talent we have.
These “would have’s” and “should have’s” of life make you shy away from your true self, pretending to be something more acceptable. Some who experience abuse early on in life never really get to see their authentic self, making it much harder to find.
Looking For Me
Are You Looking For Me?
I have been hot on the trail of my authentic self for much of the past two years. It has been a slow and sometimes scary chase. It all began almost two years ago.
When I realized that I didn’t know anything about life, I was not happy, and like many people hadn’t been happy in a long time.
There had been moments of extreme happiness, and I enjoyed people, but the inner feeling of joy escaped me. I had resigned myself to think that this was how you felt in life, empty and bored.
I was waiting for the clock to run out. However, life had other thoughts, and events reminded me that I wasn’t always this way.
Dreams were a vital part of my youth. My imagination guided me in almost every adventure I had every day, and I dreamed of everything from playing for the Red Sox to racing horses.
I believed that everything that I thought of could happen, and it was just a matter of getting a little older for me to do all of those things. That person was my authentic self, the true me. I was gifted with the ability to dream vividly, and it seemed life was determined to make me forget that.
The Cover-Up
Over the years, the feelings of trying to fit in, not rock the boat, and be “normal” made those thoughts move from the front to the back of my mind.
Finally, they were forgotten, neglected, and abandoned as I got older. I was an adult, and there was no place for dreaming in adulthood.
It was like knowing a secret that you couldn’t remember, but you knew it was a good thing, and if you could connect with it, then all would be well.
Life, however, moves in, and the job, the relationships, and the expectations all jump on top of you and push that authentic identity far back into your memory and may never let it out. Like you are asleep and can’t wake up.
Waking Up
I am not unique because I think others have gone through some traumatic events and are shocked by the malaise of life.
I started to remember it piece by piece, and it is still coming back to me. Like waking from a slumber, you begin to experience life differently.
Each of us is born with an authentic self with abilities meant for us alone. Some people are right to them their whole lives, and others never see their authentic selves again.
Most people spend their early life forgetting and the second part of their life trying to remember. It doesn’t matter who you are or what age you are; there is a unique person inside you that is a mere alarm clock ringing from waking up.
Do you know your authentic self?
“Authenticity starts in the heart.” Brian D’Angelo
“Authenticity over everything.” Anonymous
“If you’re your authentic self, you have no competition.” Anonymous
“Don’t trade your authenticity for approval.” Anonymous
“Honesty and authenticity are a big deal for me.” Scarlett Thomas
“Authenticity: The courage to be yourself.” Anonymous
There are two parts of our identity, our soul or true self, given to us at birth. It’s the true person we are and the one we are always looking to get back to in life.
The other part of our identity is our ego or false self. This mistaken idea is the person we are programmed to become. We are taught these beliefs from our parents, family members, teachers, peers, and societal influences. The false self, or what others believe we should be, takes us further from our true self.
The further we get from who we are, the more unhappy we become. But we are trapped in an illusion of ego, trying to follow a script that we did not write with our best interests in mind. Most people never consider any part of their existence in any authentic detail or depth. I challenge you to look at your thoughts and beliefs and determine if they bring you closer to your true self or further away.
Some Thoughts of the False Self
Being obsessed with perfection- Many people will never accept anything but perfection. Since perfection is impossible to achieve, this pursuit causes difficulty. It causes some never to give a total effort because they can never achieve perfection. Some will cheat to appear to be perfect. Some will steal to look perfect. Whatever the resulting action, thoughts, and feelings, they will make you feel wrong about who you are.
The feelings of greed, a limited mindset, and selfishness show that the fixed mindset has a stronghold on you. Getting as much as you can, as quickly as possible, is a sign you are lost in excessive desires. What you have doesn’t define who you are and never will. Fearing, you will never have enough is a limiting belief that takes the joy out of everything you have.
New experiences are scary. In the best of circumstances, a unique experience will cause uncomfortable feelings. In less than ideal conditions, fear of participation can result. We all have an innate fear of rejection, humiliation, failure, getting old, and the unknown, and these all lead to resistance, avoidance, and apprehension of new experiences.
They are using incomplete facts and questionable logic to justify everything you do. Because what is happening doesn’t feel”good,” people apply a created justification for what they are doing in life.
How to Find Your True Self
A choice is the first thought process we all have, which will allow or destroy the ability to grow. No matter where you are in life, you can make choices to change your circumstances and have something else happen for you. If you are unhappy with your situation in life, you can choose another way. It is easy to feel trapped by circumstances, but that is a choice. There is a power in choosing your action based on what you think is right that empowers dreams and gives positive energy to your life.
Faith in yourself and life, in general, will allow you the ability to seek growth. All things will work out, one way or another. Even if you can’t see how they are going to come true, pursuing your goals is one of the most potent acts of faith you can undertake. Looking at how specific actions lead to thoughts and emotions that attract or repel you. Having faith that the best of things is coming your way, even when it seems dark and far away at the moment, is a genuine act of strength. Faith that you will find your significant purpose.
Seeking growth opportunities in your life. Dismiss the idea that you have to be perfect in every way because it is an unreachable standard. If you approach all things as if you can master them with a bit of practice and dedication, you will be able to do just that. Having natural ability is helpful, but those who work to improve will always benefit the most and, in the long run, be able to handle challenges and setbacks. There is a strength we develop about this time. Shift your focus from, I know everything! To I can learn anything.
Surrender to what is. This is the movement of the soul. Resistance is the voice of the ego. The former pulls you closer to your true self, and the latter pushes you further away. Fear is the ego’s tool, but surrender does not mean you accept poor treatment or behavior from another. You recognize it for what it is, which will dictate your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Most often, to accept a situation means you can leave a wrong place or difficult circumstances for something more positive.
It is up to each individual in the world to decide if they are going to seek their real purpose in life or follow the general script that society has programmed into them. Each person has a destiny when they enter the world, some task to accomplish, a message to leave, or some work. Our lives have meaning, and it is up to us to determine if we are following our correct path or not. You are a powerful force of destiny, but you have to start by looking for who you are and what that purpose is. Our most important journey is to leave ego and live our life from the soul.
“It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.” ―Winston S. Churchil
“The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, and we get lost; we turn back. Maybe it doesn’t matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.” ―Barbara Hal”
“People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they are not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.” ―Dalai Lama
All the decisions we make are for the benefit of our soul, or they exist to feed our egoic identity. Your soul is your true self; you were born to be. All the things you do and your decisions in this area will be positive, feel good, and resonate with you. Then there are the choices we make because of the ego. These are choices made in fear and generally pull us further away from who we are.
The goal is to make more decisions that benefit our souls and remind us of all the things that make us happy, productive, and whole. The problem is that our ego has pushed us into situations to distract us from our true identity and move us in directions further from our purpose toward filling our programming. The goal is to start to recognize which of your choices are doing what. Are they moving you closer to your soul or true self, or are they pushing you further away? The best test is to ask yourself every day, “Am I becoming the person I was meant to be?” Let the proper answer guide you.
Your Soul and Why You May Not Know It
Since your soul is your true self, when you strip away all of the things you identify with, which aren’t you, job, money, possessions, what others think of you, or more accurately, what you feel about yourself, you are left with your soul. It is an accurate representation of your connection with a creator and all other people in the world. There is no fear, anger, or judgment located here. A person living from the decisions their soul makes is going to be the best version of themselves.
The restlessness you feel about life comes from not living up to that version. Knowing your best is there inside you, but not learning how to let it out or share your skills with the world. Most people have some of these feelings and are unaware they have another choice.
We pursue things others have told us we should want and never consider what we might want ourselves. We are too worried about looking silly or disappointing a parent, peer, partner, or imaginary audience. Look inside yourself and see what appeals to you and give it a try. The key to understanding the soul comes from creativity because you can lose yourself in a drawing, a painting, a carving, or just restoring a piece of furniture. The act consumes your attention and quiets your mind, and that allows your soul to speak to you. Positive feelings will move you in the right direction.
Know The Ego
The ego has a distinctive negative voice, as well. It has a constant need to try to control everything and everybody out of the misguided thought that if you control everything, then nothing painful will ever happen. This need resists change and growth and makes all involved unhappy. There is also a need for approval from others, which stops one from stepping out and trying something bold and brand new.
If you wait for the approval of others to let your true self shine through, you will end up living your whole life falsely. And finally, the voice of the ego loves to express itself in the judgment of others and yourself. To judge is to be unaccepting of others, their contribution, and their differences because their differences make you feel wrong. Rather than accepting disagreements that the soul would welcome because we are all different, those differences make us glorious.
Choose The Soul
It is a magic of people that we all have within us a divine presence, and it exists in your soul. It is the thing that connects us all with all living things if you allow yourself to feel it. Each decision is either for the soul and becoming the best version of yourself or egoic thought, which stifles healthy growth, attempts to control things, and pushes people down paths they will not be happy traveling. Egoic change occurs subconsciously, and if you don’t examine your thoughts at all, they probably come from that area.
But conscious thought is a guide to your soul and your true, best self. Look at your thoughts honestly and see what they are telling you. Notice what they are telling the world about you. If we all were motivated to become the best version of ourselves, imagine what the world would look like operating from that place. We are born as a soul, and the ego we develop over time. Work your way backward and find your true self.
Thinking consciously about the things which resonate with you and bring joy to your life will allow those things to become a part of your reality. Of course, there are steep hurdles to jump in this pursuit. We have established programming which creates our beliefs and creates our intentions in what things we have in our lives.
What would your life look like if you made only choices which made you happy?
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. – Aristotle
Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold; happiness dwells in the soul. – Democritus
Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul. –Wayne Dyer
Each person has an idea, a hope, a dream which represents the soul. We must give to it the warmth of love, the light of understanding, and the essence of encouragement. – Colby Dorr Dam
When you woke up today, you probably looked in the mirror at some point. Who did you see looking back at you? Most of us see a person we have created to fit into the roles we face in our lives each day. The one who has to perform their job, take care of their family, do what is expected, and be the person your ego has told you to be. But that is not who you are, and most of us are operating under a case of mistaken identity, and until we start to look for who we are underneath the flaking edifice covering us, we will continue to feel just……..not quite right. The good news is you are there, the real you, right there underneath the stories we have chosen to believe and give life to in our imaginations. Remember who you are, and there is nothing that can stop you.
Our Stories
People are great creators of stories, and we use them to define our lives. Things happen to everyone; some are very positive and will readily accept them because they make us look and feel good. We tell these stories to the world about the accomplishments, the skills we have, the relationships that define us. We describe these tales to ourselves. This process is a part of the false self we create in life to fit in, to show we are exceptional, helpful, talented, and to deliver our value to ourselves and the world. We are the authors of these stories, and we create our biography. What
What story do you tell about yourself, which contradicts your true self?
happens when the stories we tell are entirely fabricated in our minds.
Your real identity is not in the stories you tell, and you choose to believe about yourself. Each of us is more than that behind the decks. It is my contention; all people have greatness within them and have forgotten their true identity. Replacing it with life stories, others will accept, to give a positive view of themselves. But the correct version is so much better and valuable. Finding your identity should be the first step in your development, and learn to embrace it.
Glimpse It, Embrace It
I know many people who possess real power is in who they are, not in what they do. However, they give all of their attention to what others think of them and their role. Spending time seeking the approval of others and searching for social media acceptance or just popularity alone is not going to reveal any of the natural substance within. It is chasing a false creation, made to please others rather than to express yourself. Self-expression through creativity is the voice of the true self within. You have no doubt had glimpses of the person you are. Look for it, and you know you have found it by the overwhelming positive feeling it brings to you inside.
Embrace this feeling and look for more of it. Finding a way to communicate with this part of yourself is the secret. It is not difficult to do. You have to quiet your mind and then look past the never-ending stream of thought our brains produce and see what is behind them. That is where your true identity is living, waiting for you to put aside the mistaken identity you cling to and embrace your true self. Many people have been raised to ignore our true selves. Fit in, find the job your family will accept as “successful.” Embrace the relationship others will agree, skip the one that is right for you. Your true self knows what is right for you and what is not. Look behind the mistaken identity you have accepted about yourself.
How to Find You
All of this is nice, but without a plan to find your true identity, it will just be an excellent idea. First, you have to be willing to look for the person you are. I know many great people are not ready to watch because they are afraid of what they will find. Fear is the actual opponent for all of us in all aspects of our lives. You may be comfortable where you are with your story, even if, deep down, you know there should be something more. It is hard to move out of security to find something else that is
Fear stops this from happening; don’t let it stop you. The world needs your authentic self.
The fear. But why are we here if not to bring all we are capable of creating to the world. Fearlessly look for that person.
Second, we have to be willing to create action plans and follow them toward who they are. Take a class, read a book, join a group, write your thoughts, find your true identity, and embrace it wholeheartedly. If this seems simplistic, give it a try, and then we will talk. Our characters have been constructed throughout our lives, and making changes to the beliefs we have accepted as accurate is the most challenging thing a person will do.
Look at every single thing you believe is real and question it. We all have beliefs that limit us from being our best or accepting the best life has to offer us. We learned them from society, family, and institutions that raised us. Proving these long-held beliefs false is unsettling, but through that uncomfortable mess, our true self will rise. You have to be willing to risk who you think you are to find out your real identity.
Be willing to be uncomfortable, scared, and nervous about what you are doing and trying to create, and the thing you will build will be your true self. What could be better than that?
“A wild goose never laid a tame egg.” – Gaelic Saying
“Every man is the architect of his own fortune.” –Appius (c.470 BC)
“If there’s one message I want people to take away is never compromise being your authentic self. Even if that means making others uncomfortable.” -Halima Aden
“The real rub is finding that authentic self, and it’s not something that’s going to come to you overnight.”- Paul Guilfoyle
Self: A person’s essential being distinguishes them from others, especially considered the object of introspection or reflexive action.
When it comes to big questions in life, “who am I?” generally tops the list. We all have a sense of self from the time we first become aware. Our essential being is who we are inside, not the person we choose to show to others. But what is honest about this? Much of what we have come to identify with as our “self” is an illusion. We carry around this sense of who we are, but it is based on many factors that are not us at all. Our job, relationships, what we own, what others think of us, and even our thoughts about ourselves are not accurate representations of us. So how do you find out what defines your essential being? That is a quest that will raise your consciousness, and it will start by paying attention to what you think of your “self,” the words you use speaking to your “self,” and the actions you take to show who you are. What is your true SELF?
Mindfulness
One of the cures for the illusion of self we carry around is to begin to practice mindfulness. This is a practice of being aware of the present moment and accepting all that it brings you. Your sense of self is revealed to you in the everyday experience of interacting with your world. How do you see the sunrise? How do you see interactions with other people? How do you react to things? What do you believe about yourself and your abilities? Each moment reveals the characteristics which make up our “self.” Watching them and accepting them is mindfulness.
The value of this is that you remove all of the expectations of the rest of the world. They don’t matter who you are; they matter to who the world perceives you to be. It is a false self that is contained in our ego. Looking past these expectations is the first step of growth and seeking to remember who you are. Forgiveness of those who hurt you and yourself for actions outside of your true nature is a must. Mindfulness is easy to practice but challenging as well because it can be painful to see your thoughts. But try to stay in the moment, dwell on the past or worry about the future. Be present and see who is there looking back at you. That is your true self.
Over 7 Billion People
It always makes me question existence when I consider that over 7 billion people in the world and a minimal number have spent any time contemplating their presence in any natural way. What you have in life and the “stuff” you can accumulate is not as important as the person you are. The self is the one thing that belongs solely to you for the duration of your existence. Those things spring directly from your thoughts about the world and how you fit into it. Your actions and words define them.
Is your self greedy, shallow, mean, selfish, or any other negative word? Well, those things are in every person, all 7 billion. It is your choice whether they become an active force in your life or if your thoughts move toward kindness, forgiveness, peace, acceptance, or love. These are the things that define the “self” to the world. Because you can say you are a positive person, but your conscious choices make it so or not so.
No Comparison
There is no need to compare your journey and progress to others. You are solely responsible for you as another is responsible for them. Don’t waste your valuable time comparing how you think, what you have, and how you spend your time against someone else. The self you are has plenty of strength and talent. You just have to access it. That will never happen if you waste your time looking over the neighbor’s fence to see where they are at in their journey.
Do the best you can. Every day while you sift through your thoughts and deal with the situations, you are confronted with the moment to moment. Never forget that in you is a divine creation capable, reliable, and ready to achieve anything you set your mind to doing. Weight loss, working out, building a business, travel, relationships, or anything else you want in your life is there to touch if you have confidence in your “self.” Be confident and love your “self.”
Be your best SELF today. It all starts with a greater awareness of your thoughts, the corresponding emotions that arise. The words you speak to others and your actions will define you for all time.
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection”– Buddha
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”– Mark Twain
“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” – Lucille Ball
It has been one of my basic philosophies of life for me to try to find improvement.
The search within provides answers
every day mentally, physically, and spiritually. In this pursuit, I am only looking for a small increment of growth. We can measure physical gains in workouts, strength, body weight, or any other objective measure. Mentally, we grow as we increase our base of knowledge and experience. Reading new books, being exposed to new ideas are going to allow us to find growth in this area. It is in the spiritual realm things are much more challenging to measure. Our spirits are perhaps the most significant part of who we are and what we feel about the world. We are never encouraged to find the meaning behind our journey. We are born with a mind to develop with thought and intellect, a body to carry us through all our adventures, and a soul to bring appreciation and emotional development to things. This emotion is our essence, which is unique to each of us. Seek the things which resonate with your inner self, and you will find all the things you need in life. Take some time every day to get to know your soul without interfering with the mind and its thought. It is a matter of focus and openness to do it.
Knowing Your Soul
Why do we create things? There are plenty of thoughts, art, and creativity in the world already, but still, all people in some way carry a need to be creative, and it is this force that is one of the expressions of the soul. Our soul came to the world to have this experience and to express itself in a way unique to you or me or anyone else. The process of creation not only provides our voice to the world but also.
Take time to create, and you will meet your soul
helps us get to know who we are inside. Each thought we express in words or images we create on canvas will inevitably be a lesson for us about what makes us happy and what we are here to contribute to the world. And this process is ongoing throughout the experience of life.
Most of us are inundated with information, entertainment, food, conversation, or other distraction, which takes away from knowing your soul. So many other messages come to us, which tell us how we should feel. We rarely take the time to understand what our soul needs or wants. But We will hear our soul. It is the subtle but persistent voice or feeling inside of us that is never wrong. You have to quiet the mind and still the body to hear it and understand how to communicate with this knowledge. Seek to create, and that creativity will guide you toward knowing yourself. Many creative endeavors fall short because the focus is on what others will think of the product rather than what it means to your soul. The positive things you create are the expression of your soul.
Connections
One human endeavor we all share is a search for links. We are hard-wired to connect with other people and share experiences. If you notice, most of the positive things in life are things shared with other people. What is the sense of doing beautiful things, going to exciting places, or gaining all the things you dream about if you don’t share it with someone else? The meaning, in the end, is that someone else sees us as we are and understands the beauty existing in us. I think each of us is looking for the experience of visiting our unique selves recognized and to do the same for someone else. That is a connection.
We also connect to places in our experience. Nature provides many of these locations where you can go and experience more than what is there on the surface. For example, you can be sitting on a bench on the shore of a lake, but then you start to be aware of the good things around you, water moving, sun shining, and reflecting on the surface of the water. The breeze was gently blowing and bringing the coolness of relaxation. Suddenly you are fully connected to the experience, and you are not at a lake, but you are a part of that thing. It is in these moments your soul is talking to you. Are you wise enough to listen? Are you intrigued enough to try to know your soul and seek its voice and guidance? The wisdom you acquire and the ultimate success you experience in life depends on this. Pure joy resides in your soul.
The True Joy
Life is full of things to take away our awareness. We all have, at one point, had a dream about something we wanted to accomplished, places we wanted to go, or things we wanted to create. People who follow through with these things are those we ultimately see as significant. Most do not follow through, allowing confusion and distraction to take their focus away from the goal. Setting an intention that resonates with you and then taking action will bring movement toward making that thing a reality. No road is smooth and straightforward because we learn nothing that way, and the value of what we create is often paid for in perseverance.
That is the ultimate success and joy in life. To set your mind on something and to pursue it with determination and focus, which can only come from the depths of your soul, which is who you are. Putting aside the mass media messages of what we should look like, where we should live, and how we should feel and embrace our person. In each of us, that person is perfect. The view of that gets skewed and distorted in life. Some turn to drugs, some turn to logic, some roll away and never seek their soul. Pure joy is allowing your soul to grow and express your true self. Seek to know your soul, and you will find this joy. You have to get your mind working well and the world out of the way to do it.
Getting Your Mind Out of the Way
I think that we have been conditioned backward in our experience. All of our development and education focus has been based on what we believe and become more intelligent in our beliefs. With each thought you choose to entertain, we have a corresponding emotional response based on our personal experience and conditioning. We can try to control our thoughts, and that will lead to our emotional experience. However, I think the opposite is true and more productive. Focus on the feelings you want to have, and they will come with automatic thoughts attached to them based on your conditioning and experience.
The power of this is that you can focus on the positive emotions you want to experience in your life, and they will bring with them the bucket of thought, which is related to that positive emotion. Choose the feeling you would like to have and see how the reviews you think are almost involuntarily positive. The sense of belonging, being loved, comfort, happiness, and joy are all in your experience, waiting to be felt and positively charge your life.
One of the benefits of learning to meditate is to get your mind to be quiet, and in that quiet moment, you can feel your soul and the direction it needs you to take. Don’t tryDon’tverthink this, because thought will only get in your way. It is the process of learning to read and trust our instincts, which will be your best and most accurate guide.
Know The Soul
Look to know your soul. I know people of high intellectual capacity who are afraid to look for the soul because they don’t see the value. They tend to be slaves to their emotions and wonder why their feelings are what they are. Take time today, and get to know your soul. I think sometimes I learn more sitting by the ocean in silence for a few moments than I ever learned in years of study in organized educational experiences. When you create, don’t what others will think, how accepted it will be, or if anyone else will understand. Authentic expression is from within and is to speak your truth. That is your soul. That is you.
Create today in some small way, recognize it is to express yourself and share that person with the world. Knowing your soul seems to be the only way to bring the things in your life that will genuinely make you happy. Music is the language of the soul, and the songs we connect with speak to a part of our soul. Please get to know yourself and what resonates with you, and the world will be a better place for it.
“The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it – basically because you feel good, very good when you are near or with them.” -Charle Bukowski
“The living soul of man, once conscious of its power, cannot be quelled.” Horace Mann
“A beautiful woman delights the eye; a wise woman, the understanding; a pure one, the soul.” Minna Atrim
“If only our eyes saw souls instead of bodies, how different our ideals of beauty would be. Beauty attracts heart, but character attracts soul.”
When you look at your existence, what do you feel? Are you located in your body alone, simply taking up the space that you are physically in at the moment? Or are you more than that? Only you can answer this question. Do you make yourself small or big like the sky? This decision is made each day by all people living worldwide, in all sorts of circumstances. This is the choice we have. Let our greatness and abilities show for the world or hide behind excuses and fear, playing it safe and doing what we are told. In every moment, there is a choice of this, be your big, bold, beautiful self or hide that person away. Too many I know are playing the small game when the big game is right there for them to take. Of course, there is a risk, but life is a risk, or it is nothing. So are you going to live small today or big like the sky?
A Small Life
Many people would have you believe that you are small, insignificant, and not unique in any way. This type of thought is taught in many schools and societies. Be good, follow the rules and manage yourself. Stay within the confines of yourself and don’t branch out in thought or creativity. The purposes of these
Are you living like a pebble? As small as possible but “safe.”
limits are wide and varied. The individual teachers and parents might be just doing what they think is right, based on their education. Perhaps they are dealing with their own inadequacies. Seeing someone shining, growing, or moving toward great heights is scary. If one person can do it, so can they, and they are not, so what does that say about them.
When it was not ok to be myself, then I pulled myself inside for protection, like a turtle in its shell. Protect who you are from society’s ridicule and expectations that apparently don’t accept your gifts and talents. It is better to bury that gift than have it be destroyed. this leads to us living life in a small way. Hidden behind several masks of false identity that protect us. Besides not truly being yourself, the problem is that after a while, we accept that this is the way life is and forget the talents and uniqueness that we have inside. We live life in a small way, moving through our days with a quiet gnawing feeling that something isn’t right, but we don’t know what.
Living Like the Sky
Some never experience this. Or life allows them to escape this cycle of smallness. They can nurture
Are you living as big as the sky?
This inner talent, and instead of pulling it in, they are projecting it out. Out to the world, where others can see it, feel it, and know it. These individuals’ influence will grow out to distances that are unfathomable to others, especially those living life like a pebble. They see the sky, and it is so foreign to them that they ridicule it, chastise it, and move as far away from it as possible.
Yet it shines because that is what the sky does. There is nothing but the possibility of more and the unique configuration of clouds in its broad expanse and either that will never be constructed in the same way ever again. This form can only be described as beautiful.
Your Choice Now, Be You
Really, in the end, being you is the greatest accomplishment of life.
So now it is your choice how to live your life. Live small like a pebble or big like the sky. Hide in protective mode or let yourself expand out into whatever form you will take. In the end, you are only yourself, and being anything other than that is a lie. I don’t know you, but I do know a few things about you. You are unique. You have talent. You can be kind. You can give to others. You are fantastic.
So what is your choice live small like a pebble or live big like the sky?
Inside every person in the world, there exists a conflict between your two selves.
Students of psychology have several different names for these “voices.” Some refer to them as your ego, or perhaps your superego, but I will address these two voices as False–Self and True-Self for my purposes.
These two entities are constantly battling for control of our thoughts and actions. If you don’t believe it, who answers you in your head when you ask the simplest question? One voice asks the other one answers. It happens all of the time. Now let’s get to meet your two voices.
Sometimes You’re Hard On Yourself
Self I(ego, primitive self, jerk, whatever you want to call it.) is your stern voice. It is a know-it who does nothing but issue commands and judges every result.
This is the voice that will tell you that you are stupid for trying, or that will never work, or call you an idiot when things don’t quite turn out the way that you hoped. This voice has been building inside you since you were born to protect you from disappointment, to keep you safe.
It doesn’t mean to stagnate your growth or cause you to carry around an impossibly negative attitude towards everything and everybody. You will see this voice in evidence in people who continually judge others and always believe that their way is the best.
Now their way maybe, in fact, the best way, but if this voice dominates someone, they will never seek anything outside of their experience because to do so would put at risk the status quo, and that would be too scary for them to deal with.
Fear of the unknown can make many individuals cling to their old ways and habits, simply because although they may be bad, they are a known entity, and better to feel bad continually by something that you know than to risk something new.
Raising your level of hope that things can get better only to be disappointed is just too scary for most people. It is much safer never to try and not know how you would fare than to try and fail. Failure is only one more step to success, and without taking steps, you may never find it.
Say Hello to your true self.
Self II is the voice of your subconscious mind, the absolutely human part of your mind that will create creative scenarios and ideas for you to follow.
This voice will urge you to pursue your talents and try to create something great, ignoring the critical “Self I” voice and all of its defense-minded musings. This voice will tell you about all of your natural potentials and inform you about the skills and capabilities that you possess that will enable you to act and achieve almost anything that you have put your mind to accomplishing.
This ability to rely on ourselves and continue to develop and release our potential, I think, is what most people are looking for in life. We have the skills and talents to achieve most things we set our minds toward doing if we allow our true talents to shine through the naturally negative expectations of ourselves and others.
People who have achieved greatness in any field, to some degree, and at some point in their life were able to find, listen to and follow this positive inner voice.
Simple Path to Success
I love this picture! Thank you, Google Images!
The simple path to success involves recognizing your own limiting voice and choosing to ignore it and listen to your inner positive voice, allowing you to succeed in the path you should follow.
Finding your ability to hear your own positive voice will enable you to continue to grow as a person and release your nearly unlimited potential to do whatever it is you set your mind to.
Ignoring the negative voice in you that says nothing but negative and judgmental things will allow your positive attitude to bloom into whatever you dream for it to be. Being the best that you can be is within you.
All people have the ability within themselves to be great and powerful person including both you and me.
The following song is for all of the “Boxing” we do with ourselves. We all do it, and it is unnecessary we are all on the same team.
Over the years, the feelings of trying to fit in, not rock the boat, and be “normal” made those thoughts move from the front to the back of my mind.
I am not unique because I think others have gone through some traumatic events and are shocked by the malaise of life.
