It’s OK To Be You: How To Become Authentic

Hello beautiful friend 🙂

I am back safe and sound from my Woodstock Fruit Festival Adventures, and I am really excited to share with you everything that happened while I was away! That post will be coming to you some time next week, because there are many, many photos I must upload to do the experience justice!

For today, I want to share with you something that I have been processing within myself for quite some time, and that was strongly integrated for me on my trip.

What I want to re-enforce for you today are these facts:

It is OK to be yourself. It is OK to want what you want. It is OK to feel how you feel.

I spent a large portion of my life trying to deny who I was, what I wanted, what I believed and what I thought.

• I used to be one of the most socially awkward people on the planet, because I was so worried about saying or doing the wrong thing that I came across as really inauthentic.
• I used to force myself to eat things I didn't enjoy and do workouts I didn't like because I trusted that what other people were telling me about health was more accurate than what my own body was telling me.
• I used to 'stick it out' in jobs and schooling I didn't enjoy, because I thought that if I just stayed long enough, eventually I would learn to like it OR that I would eventually be appreciated for my work.
• I used to hang onto relationships that I knew were toxic or just not true friendships simply because I thought it was my job to get along with people, even if that meant not being myself.
• I used to feel so guilty for wanting what I wanted. Wether that was to move away from home, to find new friends, to eat different foods or to travel.
• I used to deny how I was feeling all the time, in order to avoid making anyone feel uncomfortable. And if I did end up expressing a more 'negative' emotion to someone, I would feel totally embarrassed, weak and undeserving of their love and affection.

Can you relate to anything above? Are you someone who continually second guesses yourself, or someone who believes that on some level you do not deserve to have the things you want? Do you feel badly for feeling the way that you feel, or thinking the way you think about certain things?

If so, you are not alone. At all.

As you can see above, I have struggled with crippling self doubt and I have seen it in so many of my friends, family members, clients and co-workers that I felt it was time to share some of my insights on the topic.

The truth is, you are the only one who has the power to give yourself permission to be who you are. You are also the only one with the power to shut yourself down.

It can sometimes feel like others are discouraging you from being yourself - either by out right rejecting you or acting in some other less obviously rejecting way - but the truth is that even if the whole world is rejecting you and telling you that you cannot be yourself, if you are giving yourself permission to be you, then no one else's opinion is really going to matter.

On the flip side, even if the whole world is telling you that it is OK to be who you are, that you are safe and loved and secure, if you continue to believe that you are not able to be yourself and that you must deny who you are and what you feel, you will always feel stifled.

The real reason I want to invite you to liberate yourself from all the 'shoulda' 'coulda' 'woulda' that may be going on for you with regards to who you are as a person is because of this:

You are a unique individual, who came here to express yourself in your uniqueness. Your life path - the life path that will bring you the most fulfillment, the most joy and the most satisfaction is the one you can only follow when you are acting in alignment with who you truly are. The only way to act in alignment with who you truly are is to accept who you are, and then allow yourself to BE who you are, in every moment of every day.

This means allowing yourself to be sad when you are sad.

Allowing yourself to disagree with the opinions of those around you.

Allowing yourself to quit jobs you hate and find new jobs that you love.

This means allowing yourself to speak your mind in social situations and releasing the feelings of guilt or shame you may inflict upon yourself for having any kind of thought, feeling or emotion.

Living an authentic life will provide you with the most satisfying experience you can have here on earth - but it also requires that you make room for ALL of you - not just the pretty presentable parts. It requires that you express the messy, crazy, angry, sad, emotional, creative, eclectic pieces of yourself as well - while making no apologies for doing so.

Now, I know that this all seems so much more easily said that done. Of course it makes sense intellectually to allow yourself to be who you are, but there are most likely still things that hold you back. You may be afraid that if you were to let yourself out of your box that you would lose all your friends, that you may lose your job, that your spouse or partner will leave you, or that you will have a total emotional breakdown.

While it is possible that there could be some emotional turmoil that has built up in your psyche from years or months or weeks of not listening to yourself or allowing yourself to be fully who you are, most likely what will happen is you will end up feeling a whole new sense of peace and calm. You will feel more grounded and more connected to what you want, and to how you wish to feel. Giving yourself the space to be who and what you are is going to feel good. Promise.

So how do you get there? How do you go from ignoring and pushing yourself aside, to opening yourself to express who you really are? Here are five tools you can use to get you started:

1. Start A Meditation Practice: You must set aside some time for you to tune into you. This is a non-negotiable for really connecting with who you are, what you are feeling and what you wish to feel. I highly suggest you practice sitting, allowing your thoughts and emotions to arise as they are, and to allow them just to be. Do not try to change them or manipulate them, do not berate yourself for thinking or feeling what you do. Just make space in your own mind for you to be you. This will ripple outward the longer you practice.

2. Notice The Things You Most Often Criticize Yourself For: Are you constantly picking at your appearance? Are you always berating yourself for your intelligence? What is the mental tape that plays in your head? These are the thoughts you want to start becoming aware of, and then questioning. Do you really need to hate your body? Is there really anything wrong with the way you think or speak or behave, or is that just some idea you have adopted from someone else?

Then, if you can, start to catch yourself when you are thinking negative thoughts about yourself, and see if you can counter them. I used to nit pick at my body all day long, and in order to change so that I could feel more comfortable with myself, I started to actively re-frame my negative thoughts into positive ones. If I noticed I thought the thought "I am so fat, I hate my body", I would immediately stop, look myself in the eyes and thank my body for doing all that it does for me, and I would tell myself that I was beautiful. Noticing where you are beating yourself up and consciously deciding to send yourself love instead will power you on your path towards genuine self expression at an exponentially increased rate.

3. Ask Yourself Who Your Self Doubt Is Really Serving: Who are you helping by beating yourself up all the time? How is the world made better by you believing that you are not good enough, or that you should not be the way that you are? The truth is, the more you keep yourself down, the fewer people you have a positive effect on.  No one wins when you don't love yourself. No one wins when you are not being who you are. I invite you to really take this message to heart and really consider that it may to true - that you expressing yourself is the best thing you can offer this planet. Understand that you are simply robbing everyone of the beauty that is your uniqueness, and you are robbing yourself of your fullest expression of joy.

4. Make The Choice: Empower yourself to be who you are, by deciding that you do not need permission from any outside source to do so. You are free to be yourself, and people are free to like or not like it. Remember that how others feel about you is THEIR business and their responsibility. The only real responsibility that you have is to yourself. Take your power back and choose to start expressing yourself in your truth, knowing that this is actually the most powerful thing you can do to empower others to live their truths as well. Be the leader. Be the example. Be who you are and make no excuses.

5: Walk It Out: Once you have decided that you are going to allow yourself to be yourself, there are going to be moments of doubt and weakness. There are going to be times when you want to run back to your cave of pretending - and that is OK. Allow the process to unfold, sending yourself as much love, compassion and grace as you can. Remember that this is not some sort of self improvement rampage. This is you finally allowing yourself to be who you have always been. You are already perfect, already whole, already complete - you are just here to experience yourself. So make space for the journey - don't rush it or force it. Just allow it to be.

Are you open to fully discovering who you are, and walking it out? Do you think the above tips will help you? I'd love to hear what you think!