The Importance of Being You

I don't know about you, but sometimes I find I have days where digging around for the real parts of me are hard: where being myself means feeling really uncomfortable because it means not feeling liked by everyone or anyone. And we like to be liked hey?

But I've come to the point where the cost of fitting into other people's version of myself is too painful. I don't like that version and it hasn't brought me real happiness - only those little 'fixes' of approval. It's how we got parental approval yes? Being a 'good girl' or a 'brave boy'.

When I look back at the times I was really happy, they were when I was doing things that made my heart sing and I'd been brave: stepped out of comfort zones and found new parts of me and new passions, or strengthened old ones.

I spent time last year remembering myself as a child and adult beyond the hurts and regrets, joining the dots of common themes I'd always go back to: my love of writing, my cheekiness, creativity and my passion for nature, for instance. It was a stark comparison to the times I'd done the 'sensible' thing which turned out to be a disguise of a fear-based decision (fear of attack, disapproval, failure, survival, whatever...).

So there is a clue here in a world that seems to want the masks (yep it's no coincidence we're actually wearing them physically now!) we will have to have COURAGE and strong DESIRE to be ourselves. We will have to drop the need/addiction to be liked or popular and to get real about what we need to heal and change: to PASSIONATELY PERSEVERE in the search and living of our real self.

If you've been struggling for meaning, joy and fulfillment and still trying to please everyone it's not going to happen. It's a contradiction to expect both and is why many famous and rich people are not happy. If we don't shed our skin, drop our masks, we don't offer our best self, our best gifts or our best service to the world. It's also far less exhausting than monitoring that alternative version of you that you put out there for approval or safety: worrying constantly about what others think.

So be you and if you don't know who that is devote yourself to finding yourself: the real you is the best you; the most complete you and the most loving you.