Let go of who you think you should be and embrace who you are.~Brené Brown
Do you ever fear that who you are isn’t enough — you put on a mask and become someone you’re not to avoid rejection?
This has been me for most of my life. From a young age I never felt as though I was good enough. Growing up as an introvert surrounded by extroverts was what first got me questioning myself.
Everyone seemed to love the opposite of what I was. I felt unloved, and I became ashamed of myself.
This was the beginning of many years of self-destruction. I so desperately wanted to be accepted and loved by others. I did whatever it took to be what I thought people wanted to see. Even if it wasn’t in line with who I was and what I truly valued.
I hid behind a mask. I pretended to be someone I wasn’t. It was my protection from allowing people to get to know the real me so I could avoid rejection. This is how I lived for 23 years.
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy.~Leo Buscaglia
My mother, a woman who is steadfastly spiritual and always looking for a way to move into greater understanding of herself and others, recently attended a meeting for our church where she serves as a prayer practitioner.
Each of the participants were recounting the issues they were working through, some rooted in relationships, others in careers.
When it was my mom’s turn to share, she expressed that she felt beaten down by the financial trouble that was on the horizon once again after recent layoffs left both her and my dad without jobs.
One of the women turned to her and simply said, “Are you ready to let go of the struggle?”
Her first instinct was to say, “Yes, of course. Who wants to struggle?” But as she sat with the idea, she noticed the pattern, the strings of attachment and the payoff of being in a constant state of upheaval, worry and uncertainty.
Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.~Mason Cooley
I was on my way home after purchasing a lavender-scented candle to help kick start a relaxing atmosphere I desperately needed to wind down from a terrible and emotionally draining week at work. I was rummaging for my keys in my purse for what seemed like forever.
Oh no! Are you kidding me? I didn’t have my keys!
I could see my keys right now in my mind’s eye. There they were, resting on the table by the side of the door. That morning my boyfriend locked the door as we headed off to work, while I unknowingly left my keys at home.
The thing was that he just got on a bus to meet up with a friend on the other side of town.
I couldn’t help but laugh miserably at myself. What a fitting ending to a horrible week.
Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding. ~Yehuda Amichai
I woke up excited about the day ahead. It was a year after I’d left my job and a promising new way of life was taking shape.
I wrote for an hour at my big wooden desk in the morning light. With rich Castro coffee and a cat curled near my feet, I felt expansive and loved.
The promise of breakfast wafted through the house as I headed for the shower. In the shower, an idea for a fun blog post series came to me, and I found myself singing an ABBA tune.
But then it hit me.
This is not normal. This can’t be right. Mama mia! I’ve been happy for too long this morning.
Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it everyday.~Henri Nouwen
“If I’m not fully happy right now in this moment, nothing will ever make me happy.”
The thought struck me as I stood at the kitchen sink scrubbing the dishes. It appeared organically, but it felt like something I already knew, a conclusion I was returning to, not recognizing for the first time.
One of those moments where you say, “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”
It wasn’t a moment that I should have been happy — one of those milestones in which happiness is actually a requirement, i.e. graduations, weddings, etc.
It was ordinary. I was tackling a mundane task and thinking about what I needed to get done in the next 24 hours.
Yet, in a moment of clarity — one I didn’t muscle into fruition — I recognized that everything I had longed, begged and dreamt about a year ago was there, in my current experience.
Sometimes a leap of faith is the only available transportation.~Margaret Shepherd
The wind kicked up the desert sands behind me as I leaned forward, cautiously looking over the edge. The fissure had no visible bottom. On the other side, just a few feet away, the trees beckoned invitingly, promising water, promising shade.
There was nothing for me to go back to; if I wanted to go forward at all, I was going to have to jump. My heart ached to advance, but my knotted stomach held me back.
What if I can’t jump that far? What if I fall? What if it’s even worse over there on the other side?
OK, perhaps I’m being a little dramatic; I wasn’t literally standing in a desert. Or technically even jumping over anything. But the fear was completely real.
Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.~Brene Brown
I emigrated halfway across the world to escape my story. That’s how desperate I was.
It was a story of loneliness, rejection and depression. I blamed my country of origin, my family and a run of bad luck.
And instead of facing my story, I ran from it.
But our pasts always catch up to us. And so it wasn’t long before my life in a new country with a great new job resembled much of my life before the emigration.
Not on the outside, but on the inside. I had escaped my physical circumstances only to find that what I really wanted was to do was escape myself.
We accept the love we think we deserve.~Steven Chbosky
I’ve been going through life feeling like a fraud.
Every time a friend expressed awe over my seemingly perfect life, I gulped a big one and prayed they would never realize what my banal day-to-day existence was really like.
When I was in school, at every exam I hoped that this wouldn’t be the first one I would fail miserably, starting a chain reaction of terrible grades, followed by flunking out of school and ending up on the street … or in jail.
Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.~Deborah Reber
All my life, I have relied on goal-setting to achieve results.
Whether it came to school work, or even just taking time to hang out with my friends, I would plan the entire day out on outlook or use one of many goal setting techniques that I had learned.
For example, I would stick a piece of paper on the ceiling of my bedroom with my goals written on it so it would be the first thing I saw when I woke up.
And while all this helped me achieve great results, I noticed that I was always chasing the next big thing or the next goal I set for myself. I noticed that I never felt genuine contentment in my life.
It wasn’t just with goals. When it came to my social life, I cared too much about being popular and tried too hard to maintain a good social image by pleasing people. And I constantly felt like I didn’t know who I was, and I definitely wasn’t happy.
The way to get unstuck is to start down the wrong path, right now. … You might not end up with perfect, but it's significantly more valuable than being stuck. ~Seth Godin
Ready to get unstuck? It’s never too late to try something new and radical in order to make real change.