Stop hiding and be you.

Have you ever found that you hide parts of who you are simply because you're afraid of what others might think? 

Have you ever found that you're clamping your mouth shut tight because if your real thoughts came out, you envisaged a sea of agast faces and odd looks?

Have you ever felt pain in your chest as anxiety takes hold before you're due to speak to an audience? Scared senseless that they will find out once and for all that you are a fraud? 

More still…

Do you feel out of sync with everyone around you? Like, you're on the outside looking in, feeling you're missing some in-joke that everyone else seems to get.

Well, you are not alone. 

Heck, at the very least, you have good company, my company. 

I know what you're feeling. I've been there. 

I've been there more times than you've had hot dinners. (I'm thinking if you like hot dinners as much as I do then that's a decent number.) 

Whether it's imposter syndrome, fear, lack of confidence, or just not feeling like your voice is worthy enough to be listened to. 

Here's something for you to think about. 

Think about the funniest, freeist, easy-going person you know.

The one that takes no energy to be around. The one that owns the room without trying. 

The same one that seems to bounce easily from win to win.

You know that person. 

I know you know that person because you are smiling. Right now just thinking about them.

That person is a friend of yours. 

You can pick them out a mile away. They are the friend who has no filter whatsoever—gushing out the first thing that comes into her head. 

Yep, that's the one. 

Your smile is bigger now, isn't it? 

You might have even let out a little chuckle, remembering some anecdote or time when you saw them at their glowing best.  

They are superstars in their own worlds, and we are in awe of them. 

How do they do it? 

What's the secret? 

Do they second guess what they're saying? 

Probably not. 

Do they worry about what others think? 

Don't think so. 

Do they sit quietly, waiting for the world to notice them?

Not likely.

Yet, do we like them any less for wholly embracing who they are?

Doubt it. 

In reality, we like them even more. To be so free in their own skin and be loved for that very reason. 

These are the people I look up to. 

I listen to what they say and admire their acceptance of themselves. 

These are the people that I call Easy Company. 

Easy company is the best company.

Wouldn't it be nice to be easy company too? To hold yourself in that high esteem. To own a room with ease, not needing a week of solitude just to recover after a meeting. 

Absolutely yes, would be my answer to that. 

But here's the quandary….how to bridge the gap between where you are now and this mythical, comfortable in your own skin version of you?

The space between the two can often seem more like a chasm than the little hop we'd like it to be. 

Staring down that chasm is a distracting, disheartening place to be. 

But hold on a second, what if it wasn't? 

What if the difference WAS a little hop? What if it was as simple as just BEING?

What if making the switch in your mind to take the filter away and say what you think actually worked? 

What if it's NOT you that needs to do all the changing? 

What if the world changed FOR you? 

Because it wanted to.

In fact, it’s got a taste for the real you and demands it

What if you simply decided not to overthink everything and just accepted that you are worthwhile and enough? 

To illustrate what I'm trying to get at more, let's look at some examples. 

If Pippy Long Stocking decided that her extraverted exuberance and superhuman strength were not what was expected of a girl of her time? 

What would have happened then? If her author Astrid Lindgren had stuck to running a home and writing about nice, polite girls who loved school ad followed all the rules?  

She would have spent her life being a shadow, and we would miss out on so many stories, and that annoying theme tune would never have existed. 

We would have missed out on her pragmatic, self-assured take on the world. 

The children came to a perfume shop. In the show window was a large jar of freckle salve, and beside the jar was a sign, which read: DO YOU SUFFER FROM FRECKLES?

'What does the sign say?' asked Pippi. She couldn't read very well because she didn't want to go to school as other children did.

It says, 'Do you suffer from freckles?' said Annika.

'Does it indeed?' said Pippi thoughtfully. 'Well, a civil question deserves a civil answer. Let's go in.'

She opened the door and entered the shop, closely followed by Tommy and Annika. An elderly lady stood at the back of the counter. Pippi went right up to her. 'No!' she said decidedly.

'What is it you want?' asked the lady.

'No,' said Pippi once more.

'I don't understand what you mean,' said the lady.

'No, I don't suffer from freckles,' said Pippi.

Then the lady understood, but she took one look at Pippi and burst out, 'But, my dear child, your whole face is covered with freckles!'

'I know that,' said Pippi, 'but I don't suffer from them. I love them. Good morning.'

-Pippy Longstocking

If Marie Curie had resigned herself to cooking dinners for Pierre after her 1911 application to join the French Academy of Sciences was rejected. or if she had listened when physicist Emile Amagat claimed that "women cannot be part of the Institute of France." 

What a shame that would be. Especially since Marie went on to win two Nobel prizes leaving Pierre with a single Nobel prize sitting lonely on their mantelpiece.

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." 

- Marie Curie

Stephanie Meyer received 14 out of 15 letters of rejection from literary agencies. She owned who she was, and finally, one publisher recognised her talent, resulting in her first of four books in the Twilight saga being copied 100 million times, translated into 37 languages and adapted into a huge film franchise.

'Like the night, without the dark, we'd never see the stars.' 

- Stephanie Myers. 

Embrace who you are, and the world will come up to meet you. 

The most exciting people in the world are not followers. They are not the ones who hide their true selves away from the world. 

They are the ones who truly embrace who they are and own what they think, feel and do. 

So here is my hope for you today.....

BE YOURSELF; THEY'LL ADJUST. 

Because you, my dear friend, are interesting, insightful and worthwhile, just as you are, freckles and all. 

You might surprise yourself at how easily, comfortably and happily the world adjusts itself around you. 

Fair warning, you might even love the results.