How are you First name / my love?
Before you get to the juicy stuff, I want to say thank you for being here and being curious about your relationship to ‘you’ 😊
I also invite you to take a little time now to land… take a deep breath, check in and then read on for some words of wisdom, and the opportunity to deepen connect with ‘you’ through the journal prompts at the end.
Have you heard the term ‘authentic self’ or even the ‘real you’ and ever wondered wtf does that mean First name / my love?
In my
latest podcast episode I talk about the ‘authentic self’ which sits
behind the belief systems and protective versions of our self that have helped us to ‘show up’ in the world when we have felt vulnerable.
There are certain identities that blur our sense of who we truly are. some of these identities are ‘the parent’, ‘the worker’, ‘the partner’, ‘the child’… all relatively normal identities that we show up in and not our truest selves… you hold bits back that you deem unsuitable in that setting.
But you also may have a sense that you can't EVER fully be yourself with ANYONE because a younger version of you learned it was ‘unsafe’ and may be: deemed as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, rejected, abandoned, disliked, hurt or unwanted if you did.
So the clever mind in collaboration create a separate version of who we are to who we think we need to be to be ‘ok’.
We become the confident one, the party animal, the class clown… anything that gives us validation and a sense of being needed and liked.
The problem is… the vulnerable, real you never goes away and as a result never gets seen or loved as they are hidden somewhere behind the coping actions and behaviours that give people the perception of who we are.
You will then feel anxious (as constantly looking for ‘who’ to be), indecisive, depressed.. you may look for perfection in everything you do or procrastinate so you never get started or change to do anything new.
The real version of you just wants to be acknowledged, seen and heard just for ‘being'…
To be told it's ok not to be perfect
That occasionally you will f*ck up and hurt people, but you will learn and make amends
That sometimes you won't get the dream job, or the person you love won't love you back but it will be ok, it will work out
That failure IS an option and prepares you for success
That success doesn't make you a better person, you are already enough
To be told ‘I love you' when you aren't a joy to be around AND when you are
Does this resonate?
I know it did for me.
I am honestly the truest version of ‘me’ I ever have been. Not afraid to get it wrong, to ask for help, to say I am not ok, to say I don't have all the answers, to be a stone heavier or lighter without it being essential to how I feel about me, to not have to be the funniest and most confident in the room, to not have to second guess what other are thinking in order to ‘act accordingly’
The sense of inner peace is priceless.
My capacity for life's normal stresses has improved greatly because that capacity is no longer tied up by ‘who I need to be’.
I feel no shame when I f*ck up.
I feel no guilt about resting or saying no to what I don't want.
I am often compassionate.
I lose my sh*t soemtimes if I am tired or hormonal OR I haven't been conscious to taking care of my boundaries.
I don't take being ghosted or not included personally anymore; I am not responsible for how others how up.
And I am here, doing this work, and sharing this because I want you to experience the same and to feel at ease with yourself.
I absolutely believe 1:1 therapy is the greatest tool for helping you to heal from your unique experiences that lead you to not knowing or loving ‘the real you’… but I also know there's a lot of commonality in how we are all thinking, feeling and acting, and within that common ground, community and learning can take you a HUGE way forward.
Are you interested in taking steps towards self love and towards your authentic self? Then this might be for you…
