Today’s Thought: Are you living your truth? The life you know in your bones you are meant to live? Do you know who you are at core, or have you gotten so stuck on ‘survive,’ or living for others, that you can’t even identify the real you anymore?
You feel it, somewhere deep within. The dissonance. Something just not quite right. Your life looks perfect, you are doing everything you should, you may even be ‘living the dream.’ Yet something…is off. This is indicative that you may not be living your personal truth.
There’s a strong likelihood that you aren’t living your genuine truth: Society conditions us to ‘check in’ with others in order to determine our self-worth. What are the Joneses doing? Did the teacher approve your answer, did you give the one and only correct solution? Did your boss tell you how you are doing? If an external judge or the court of public opinion doesn’t support your choices, you must be wrong. You can’t possibly wear/buy/consume/do/be anything unless someone else approves it. Otherwise you risk judgment and disapproval. You could be laughed at, mocked, or even <gasp!> ‘un-cool.’
Ironically, even as educators, psychologists, and media give lip service to rejecting peer pressure, the system itself is structured to encourage toeing the line based on what others judge to be right for you. Teach a child ‘there is only one correct answer’ and ‘look to someone else to see if you are right’ and you condition them to seek the approval of others. More insidious perhaps is what it quietly implies: if you don’t ‘measure up,’ you aren’t acceptable. You must fit in, at all costs, or you lack value, you cannot be approved, you don’t ‘rate.’ It isn’t much of a leap to see how we can then become easily influenced to work to fit in, sacrificing their inner compass toward our personal truth in the process. You grew up inside this conditioning process. If you find yourself relating to this post, it is no wonder!
The sad reality is, we can waste our valuable life moments chasing the approval of others, arriving at the end of our days never having reached our potential. Never having lived our truth. What a waste of precious life to see such unfulfilled potential! However, we can break free of this. We can embrace our inner truth, and step up and be the person we were born to be, and learn what we are truly made of. So many have tremendous potential, yet only some turn it into reality. Will you be one who does? Isn’t it time to live your truth?
For Today: Ask yourself, “How much of my life am I willing to give away to others? Isn’t it time to honor the precious life moments I possess, and tap into my own special super-powers, the things that make me so uniquely me?” Then determine what steps you need to take to free yourself to live your personal truth. If you feel like life in the shadow of the desire of others has dulled your ability to recognize your own internal truth, try getting a little experimental in your approach to life. Keep in mind, too, that you are not broken, you don’t need to be fixed or repaired in order to fit in. You just have to find the courage to fully be who you are, breaking free of the attachment to what others may think. It is time to take back your life.
You are unique. An absolute one-of-a-kind original Embrace that and show the world something it has never seen before. Be it, live it, love it – and don’t judge it.