Relationships | Mental Health | Self Improvement
Just Be Yourself
Right now, we’re spending a lot of time in our homes and some of us are loving it. Others yearn for their familiar distractions.
At first I enjoyed the time alone. It was a great opportunity to slow down and think about my life and the choices I’ve made so far. Eventually I began to miss connecting with people in real life and most of all, hugging them.
I also miss the comfort of knowing what my role is with other people. When I’m not around someone else, I’m not sure how to act.
Social distancing has left me wondering who I am.
This morning I realized that the words ‘I am enough’ don’t mean what I used to think they meant.
On the surface, you might think that’s silly. Most people say the words “I am enough” mean something like — ‘you don’t have to strive or pretend’ or ‘be yourself’.
That hasn’t always been clear to me. I don’t know how to “be myself”. My ‘self’ was made up of judgments, mine and other people’s.
All their expectations are balled up in there as well as my experiences and what I made them mean to me.
My ‘self’ was created by impressions in the clay of my mind, the marks imprinted by others and the lines I drew as I learned the rules. These layers were place one upon another until the image on the surface of the clay was just a mask.
So, when someone says — “just be yourself”, — I find it confusing. Which self? The one I am with you? The one I am at the parent/teacher meeting?
I sometimes feel like I have a split personality.
Then later, when I’m with someone else, I wonder: should I continue to be the self from before or do I shift (as I am often inclined to do ) to the self that I usually am when I am in that situation with the new person.
It’s a conundrum.
People have told me to “listen to your heart”, and I try, but my heart’s voice is often overpowered by the voice in my mind.
The longer I sit and listen, the more the voices grow quiet and move to the background of my mind.
When I realize there is a ‘self’ that is listening, and a ‘self’ that is watching me listen, it makes me wonder how many layers of ‘self’ exist inside of me.
Words In Motion 