Be You!
Everywhere I look these days, the message is clear … be yourself; unto thyself be true. I have no idea if I am the only one ‘receiving’ these messages at the moment, or if they’ve always been screaming at me and I am only just starting to notice them … it’s like when you buy a red car, all of a sudden there are red cars everywhere.
For 2015, my self-assigned task was to break free from all things that held me back. Perhaps that was the preparatory step towards my 2016 commitment to simply being myself. ‘Simply’, I say, as if it were that easy; although after more than 60 years of practice, it should be!
To ‘be’ true to yourself in this age of media overload requires self-knowledge, discipline, self-love and the ability to discern and tune out all that which does not support who you are. Stop hearing commercials, stop checking out what your peers and neighbours are up to, stop following trends, stop auto-reacting to other people’s judgements, stop ‘becoming’ and just be … here, now in this moment.
Dress as yourself, pray with your own voice to Whomever or Whatever you choose, eat what your body needs and wants, sleep when your body needs rest or time out, dream and own your own dreams with conviction, love who you love in whatever ways you know how and, most relevant to this blog: live, work and play in environments that nurture, replenish, protect and delight you.
Being true to yourself often means swimming against the prevailing tide … if it is awash with de-clutterers, stainless steel and pots of pastel paint, reach out and grab them only if they belong to you and keep on swimming if they don’t. Eventually, you’ll create and/or find the building blocks that, when put together, support your sense of place on this planet, within your community and inside your home … perhaps they’re sitting on a sidewalk discarded by someone else, perhaps they’re yet to be invented (by you), perhaps they’re right under your nose already!
When it comes to being yourself, you are indispensable; no one else can do it and no one is hankering after the job. Be you … be free of all the rest. Be you … be happy.
