Be Yourself - Authentically You
• Finding it difficult to be yourself - to be authentically you?
•
Then get your troubles into perspective by reading this!
• Read 7 more or
less surprising facts about being you
• Learn how to distinguish your beliefs
about yourself from the truth
• Find out what socialization has done to you +
what to do about it
Is It Cool to Be Yourself?
The answer to that question is: Always!It's very, very cool to be authentically you. In fact, it's the coolest, most desirable thing you can possibly be.
Also, it's the best thing you can DO. On a scale of 0 to 100 being authentically you rates 100.
But do you want to be yourself? That probably depends on how you define 'yourself'. Most likely some versions of 'yourself' do not seem very attractive to you, while other versions do.
For instance: If you are highly identified with your ego, odds are that it is not very attractive for you to be yourself. This is particularly true if you have a self deflating ego (as opposed to a self inflating ego).
Also, if you are plagued by shame, guilt, fear [LINK], depression [LINK], anxiety [LINK] or meaninglessness [LINK] your view of yourself and the world may be particularly bleak. No way you want to be yourself.
Okay. Time to get real.
Facts About You
I'm telling you it's great to be yourself. Why? Well, let me just remind you of a few very important facts:Fact no. 1:
You were born as yourself - to be yourself.
Fact no. 2:
You are, have always been, and will always be: yourself.
Fact no. 3:
You have been conditioned, socialized and taught beliefs.
Fact no. 4:
Your social conditioning and beliefs affects your view of yourself and life.
Fact no. 5:
Your social conditioning, your beliefs and your views affect your experience.
Fact no. 6:
No thought or conditioning or belief is ever absolutely true.
Fact no. 7:
You have free will and with it you actually choose your experience.
Please keep these facts in mind. They are important in you want to make it tolerable (or even: great) to be yourself.
Who You Are
As you may have deduced from the above statements of fact, you have to distinguish between:- 'who you really, actually, authentically are'
and
'who you have been taught to think and believe you are'.
Those are two different things. They are also mutually exclusive:
You cannot both be yourself and be who you have been taught to think and believe you are. You've got to choose:
Be yourself or be a fiction about you ...
Who you really, authentically are - who you were born as, and born to be - never really changes much. It's pretty solid and real. Also, experiencing it feels wonderful. (Absolute reality [LINK] is like that; it just feels great).
Who you have been taught to think and believe that you are is subjective and varies from culture to culture, and family to family, and person to person. It is relative, which means: It isn't absolutely real, it's more like a fiction.
Also, experiencing your relative identity is, well, a relative experience. It changes a lot. It may feel okay, or at times even great, but odds are that much of the time it just doesn't.
Just so that we are clear here, your relative identity consists of things like your ... name, job title, family, culture, thoughts, beliefs, etc.
Your authentic identity doesn't really have a name, but words that might apply could be ... consciousness, awareness, I am, soul, source, life, etc.
What is important here, however, is your feeling, your experience.
Why? Because your experience = your life.
And if I'm not much mistaken, you want a good life. Right?
What We Want
We humans are simple beings. Every single person alive basically wants just wants just two things:a) Getting a good experience or life
In other words:
To achieve having a pleasant feeling (happiness ) inside
b) Avoiding a bad experience or life
In other words:
To avoid having an unpleasant feeling inside (being unhappy)
So, the important thing is your experience.
Your Experience
Please note that 'who you experience yourself to be' is not a fixed thing. It is, in fact, a matter of choice. Your choice!You may choose to experience yourself as anything and anyone you please.
By far the easiest thing to do is experiencing yourself as being the authentic, real you. It requires no energy at all to be yourself. The obvious reason for that being that in fact you ARE the authentic, real you.
And yet ... you probably do not feel like you are being entirely yourself (most people don't). Perhaps you don't even feel that you CAN be yourself. To a large extent that's because you have been socialized. You have been taught what to be, how to be, and how to behave.
Inside you lies layer upon layer of socialization.
This need not have been a problem, but most likely it is ... because it is keeping you from being who you really are. Like I said, you cannot both be yourself and be a fiction about yourself.
The problem is not the socialization in and of itself; the problem is the link between what you have been taught and who you experience yourself to be.
In short: You have come to believe that you are that which you have been taught. Not so.
In a so-called civilized society where people have many different levels of awareness and consciousness, some level of socialization may be necessary. Our experience tells us, that we are better off, if we agree on some rules of behaviour.
Note this: Rules of BEHAVIOUR. Not rules of BEING.
Socialization should have absolutely nothing to do with who you are. And, of course, it hasn't.
We have, however, made it seem so.
A Big Mistake
We have all heard persons in authority say sentences like:- "Nice girls don't talk like that, be a nice girl!"
- "Big boys don't cry, be a big boy!"
- "A good [insert culture, nationality, group, family, philosophy or religion of your choice] does this, doesn't do that, and thinks like I think, and believes what I say!"
Sentences like those - and many, many similar ones - create links from behaviour ("do"/"don't") and to identity ("be").
In truth no such link exists!
In truth you can only be yourself. You really are who you really are, regardless of your behaviour.
No matter how you talk, you are still who you really are.
Whether you cry or not does not change who you really are.
And no matter what you do, don't do, or believe ... you are still who you really are.
There is in fact no way you can NOT be yourself.
Your behaviour is very relative and changeable, your true identity is much more absolute and permanent.
But What About Your Experience?
However: You may BELIEVE all those things that you have heard from persons of authority while you were growing up.If you do believe those things (and most people do), then your EXPERIENCE will largely conform to your beliefs. You can only be yourself, but you can in fact experience being something else.
So, if you are a girl and you talk dirty, you will experience that you are not a nice girl.
So, if you are a boy and you cry, you will experience that you are not a big boy.
And so, if you are a [insert same belief system as above] and you do, or don't do, or think or don't think, or believe or don't believe whatever you have been taught, well, then you will experience that you are not a good [insert same belief system as above].
And so you feel bad.
Because you have been brainwashed.
Socialized.
Manipulated.
By persons in authority. (Who probably thought they were doing you a favour).
But even though you FEEL bad, even though your EXPERIENCE is bad, YOU are NOT bad!
Neither are you wrong, broken, defective, lacking, sinful, unconnected, un-complete, without importance or not good enough!
You can only be yourself - and you are - and that is okay. Quite all right. Please remember that ... plus this:
You Are Already Whole, and So Is Life
This is the absolute truth:You are already whole and complete just as you are. At the most basic of levels, there is nothing wrong with you. You ARE good enough.
The same goes for life in general: Life is the way it is. That is the way it is supposed to be, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with life.
So, really, truly, there is no reason why you should not be yourself, authentically yourself.
But ... You now Say
If you are already the way you need to be and the same goes for life in general, how come you are not experiencing this?How come you do not feel complete? How come you are experiencing unpleasantness and feeling dissatisfied?
Whey you TRY to be yourself, how come some other people's reactions make you feel bad?
How come so many people quite clearly perceive a need for personal development, self improvement, self help and spirituality?
There is a very short answer to this.
The Answer to Why Your Life Experience is Not Pleasant
The short answer to why you do not feel whole and complete, and to why your life seems less than perfect, and to why it seems so hard to just be yourself, is this:Because you are busy believing.
Believing what? Anything. All sorts of things, particularly about yourself and about life in general.
You are busy believing that you are 'this' and not 'that'.
You are busy believing that 'life is like this' and not 'like that'.
At a very basic level all this believing is what is gives you unpleasant experiences. And makes it so very difficult to be yourself.
Does this mean that if you just stop believing anything at all then both you and your life will be wonderful?
Yes.
The Point about Being Yourself: You Already Are
You are already yourself, of course ... who else would you be?You have, however, been taught to believe a lot of things about a lot of things, particularly about reality (life) and your identity.
In effect you have been brainwashed.
Brainwashed to NOT be yourself. Brainwashed to try to be all sorts of other things than yourself.
This brainwashing was probably mostly done by people who really meant well. People who wanted you to succeed in life and be happy. People who taught you the best they knew. This, however, consisted mainly of what they themselves had been taught.
And since you are reading this, being interested in personal development and change, well, then what you have been taught does not serve you. Sorry!
To Be or Not to Be = Just to Be or to Believe
Am I telling you that you need believe something other than what you have been taught? No!Basically I am telling you that you need to un-learn!
You need to un-learn who you believe are and you need to un-learn what you believe about life.
You do NOT need to replace one kind of belief with another. You merely need to let go.
When you let completely go of a belief you discover the truth, which is: You just are. You exist. Nothing further is needed.
You do not need any kind of belief. You exist just fine without beliefs. In fact you exist much better than fine. Just being, merely existing as who you are when you are not trying to be something or someone in particular, is what you have been searching for all this time!
It is happiness and inner peace. It is spaciousness. It is unconditional love and universal understanding. It is your answer.
I know all this may seem incredible. Or, if you ... believe ... it, it may seem like a serious pain in the butt. Believe me(!), I know. I have been there myself (and in a few areas of my life I still am). I have spent years un-learning. I am still un-learning.
The good news is that it really works. Un-learning beliefs, letting go of them, really gives you everything you ever wanted.
The Evidence: What Happens When We Let Go
How I can make such outrageous claims? Simply by observing what happens when I myself and other people let go.Let go of what? Let go of anything that gives us an unpleasant experience. This includes:
• Feelings
• Thoughts
• Patterns of behaviour (habits)
• Needs/wants
• Beliefs
• Our entire chosen identity
Letting completely go of any one of these elements returns us to our natural state of being.
In this natural state of being we are whole and complete. We notice that the same is true for life in general. We find complete inner peace. Very often this is accompanied by intense feelings of spaciousness, love and happiness. I sometimes call this condition, this state of being: Home (with a capital H).
I have experienced this many times, and I have helped many other people experience it, too.
How are feelings, thoughts, needs, etc. beliefs? Well, they are not. They are just things that we are experiencing. But we interpret them. This interpretation is based on beliefs.
Who You Think You Are Is a Fiction
How is our entire chosen identity a belief? Well, it is a belief because it is something we have chosen (albeit unconsciously). It is by no means a natural given that exists by itself. It is not something that IS in and of itself.If we did not continuously feed attention and energy into our chosen identity to reinforce it, it would not really exist.
In other words our chosen identity is relative, not absolute.
Our chosen identity is a tale, a story, a fiction.
Our chosen identity is who we tell ourselves and other people that we are: a daughter, a mother, an accountant, a Christian, a friendly person, etc., etc.
Yes, we may be all of that, but we are also much, much more than that!
At the most basic and absolute level our identity is simply: conscious awareness. Existence that is aware of itself. Life.
Our chosen identity is merely whatever we choose to believe and make other people believe about ourselves. Hence: a belief.
All of this leads us to a certain point which is:
You Do Not Need to DO Something,
You Need to STOP Doing
Something
If your beliefs (including thoughts, feeling, needs/wants, patterns
of behaviour (habits) and your chosen identity) are actually
limiting you, what can you do to make it better?The answer is: Nothing.
There is nothing you can DO, but a lot you can STOP doing!
First and foremost you can stop believing all sorts of things about yourself and life in general. This is what I call letting go, and letting go completely will take you Home. Your beliefs are your biggest limitations.
Actually, if you want a better life (or your best life ever) this is where your primary focus should be: On finding your beliefs and other limitations and letting them go.
You want to be yourself, right? You want personal development, self improvement and perhaps even spirituality, right?
Basically any kind of personal development, self improvement or deep spirituality can be achieved by letting go of beliefs and limitations and just being who you already are when you are not trying to be anyone in particular!
Let me just repeat that last bit: When you are not trying to be someone or something in particular, you are in fact simply being yourself - which is the most spiritual and personally developed state you are currently capable of.
Also, to achieve personal development, you simply look for any kind of unpleasantness in your experience. The unpleasantness tells you that it is time to let go and just be yourself - 100%authentically you.
If you let it, your unpleasantness will even tell you exactly what to let go of. The Let Go Method capitalizes on this fact. It can be scary, but it works.
The more you let go, the more free and authentically yourself you become!
The Conclusion
Letting go and being yourself are closely related. Why?Because when you let go completely, you become authentically yourself!
Yes, there is a You when you have let go of all your beliefs.
There is a You when you are no longer attached to - and busy believing in - your thoughts, your emotions, your needs and wants, your habits (patterns of behaviour), your beliefs and your chosen (relative) identity.
Letting go can be scary at first, but the more you do it, the more yourself you become.
When you have completely let go you still exist, and not only that but subjectively you feel MORE like yourself than ever before!
This is no wonder, because what happens when you let go? You expand. You become more. More yourself.
And, incidentally, that feels good. Really good. It feels like love, happiness, ecstasy or inner peace ... or even all of the above.
In short, for you to let go and just be yourself is highly recommended. You should try it.
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