Are You Bobbing Your Way Through Life?

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Hula Dashboard-image by Pinterest 2016
​Living a rewarding and fulfilling life regardless of your life circumstances, age, financial status etc. is more significant than people may realize. After all how do we embark on our journey to authentic living if we cannot accept where we are NOW?
 
REGARDLESS of our circumstances we can live fulfilling and purposeful lives. That means having the courage to discover more who we are beneath all that was learnt behavior or habits.
 
Part of living a rewarding and fulfilling life is discovering how conditioned we are by our society, family, and culture and when we begin to see what traits really don’t belong to us, we experience freedom. I also recognize that it’s frightening to put your unique self out there especially when your tribe has created a persona of you that is not really YOU.  But, its not really their fault either-  they are conditioned too. However, what you have power over is increasing your awareness of how to live deliberately…now that’s important.
 
It seems risky to shine your unique self especially when you may be marginalized not only by your “tribe”, but also scary to question who you are without that, less than true-self persona…that’s the real problem that few want to face. In fact, people rather die before asking those penetrating and mind shattering questions. Mind-shattering because when you begin to awaken from the deep conditioned sleep, it feels like a death.
 
The death of the unauthentic self. The shattering of inherited mindsets and beliefs- of old co-dependent ways and misplaced low self esteem.
 
I’m not suggesting the removal of all familial or societal conditioning because some conditioning benefits us and those around us such as good manners and respect for others. But what I am suggesting is to ask yourself, “Who am I without my inherited beliefs about myself and about others ? And impede me from seeing either their unique perspective on something, or from bing too influenced from seeing my unique perspective?
 
              It’s venturing outside your comfort zone to reveal your authentic self.
 
In my opinion, traits that make up your unique self are what YOU bring to the world. In many respects, I too was afraid to come out and be more unique because I feared being cut off from my “tribe” (we have several) and that would have been devastating. So, for years I rarely revealed my own uniqueness, all but with one or two trusted people.
 
Not following the crowd can be life threatening…or so our DNA thinks.
 
You’ve heard folks say “oh not everyone is going to like you…” right? This is true, whether you shine or not shine, some people are just N-O-T going to like you. So why hide? Why conceal your unique-God-given trait and shove it inside of yourself, to then only become unhappy and unhealthy? And what is your reward for hiding? Let me tell you what I learned.

I learned through painful experiences that after all my hiding there was not a reward for keeping myself low and dim and unexpressive to the majority of people- I wasn’t always conscious of it, but I created a habit that said if I could just keep myself from expressing my uniqueness, I would, therefore create peace, harmony and light.
 
I told myself a good lie.  I was trying really hard not to rock the boat, to not make people uncomfortable because oftentimes, my uniqueness or the way I see the world makes folks uncomfortable.  Worse yet, their projections onto me aggravated their discomfort. Secondly, I was trying to not look too good either. God forbid that I could possible help a low esteemed woman feel better about herself by dimming any of my attractiveness! That was a lie too.
 
My lesson not reward, was that by hiding my unique self in all it’s expressions, would still make some people feel uncomfortable, jealous or threatened. There was no win-win. Who was I kidding? Yes, yes, only myself. It was delusional.
 
As I grow older, I become more keenly aware that I need to let yet MORE of my unique self come out and shine, like in my writing. I am aware that I already bring content that can be uncomfortable to some precisely because I like to dig deep and find truth and well… truth isn’t biased and certainly not often a rose garden. But we are POTENTIAL lotuses – growing in the muddiest, murkiest of waters. That’s the silver lining!
 
The taste of freedom is when you can express yourself unabashedly but with purpose and integrity. It’s not about bobbing around with a pasted smile like the hula girl/boy on the car dashboard (no offense).  My suggestion is stop trying to win over people who would never approve or like you anyway. Stop trying to not make enemies by people pleasing, for there are plenty of people who enjoy being enemies. And stop hiding your uniqueness because nobody else has your gifts anyway!

Encouraging YOU to Live Authentically,
Sandra

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​©Copyright. Sandra Rojo. All rights reserved.

#Personaldevelopment #selfhelp #psychology #authenticliving #coaching #healthyliving 
 

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