Who you are

What is at your core

Who are you without the titles? Without being a mother, sister, brother, father. Without your career or business. Without your accolades. Who are you at the core? What are your talents? What are you good at? Without these, what do you have left?

There is unchanging value in every one of us. There is a light inside you at your core. No matter what brings you down no matter what outcome we have in life or no matter what is going on in our environment, YOU have worth.

I had such a hard time finding worth. Even though I had heard it, said it, saved quotes, done self help and self development. What I didn’t realize is that I was “shoulding all over myself” as Kris Godinez puts it: focusing on all the things I should be.

You are enough

When we are born, we come into this world with value and worth. We also typically don’t see a newborn and say, “hold on, let me see what you achieve in life first, then I will decide if you are worthy. Then I will decide if I should care for you”

Its unfortunate though that most of us are born and before we even live, we are assigned a role, caretaker of elders, manager of the family business, parents relationship mender etc. Even if these roles are well intended from people who want the best for us: professional or career field that will assure significant money, it still damaging to the core.

Add these roles and all the expectations and junk in our society = a recipe for suppressing yourself. Most of us just keep focusing on what we should be doing and on doing these roles more successfully, without even stopping to look within and get out of the box.

Be still. Be silent.

In the absence of content, you will feel who you are. With everything gone, in the silence, how does it feel?… In all honesty I have heard too often about people not liking what is left behind. Learn to love who exists beyond the achievements.

Feel this child inside you, that came into this world and was already exactly who they needed to be. Nurture this child in you. Remember what your authentic self feels like. If you feel a sense of unease letting go of everything, dig deeper to learn why you feel this discomfort.

It helps to look at things from the perspective of a scientist examining your own life. If you need to, write the observation and draw a conclusion. It will help you have an honest awareness of your thoughts and behaviors without being overcome by emotion. You are the best expert at your behavior.

Accept where you fall short

The deeper you look into yourself the more you find what you don’t want to acknowledge; the parts of you that are dark that you would rather hide. For me its that I am not worthy enough. For you it could be that you are not smart enough, strong enough, etc.

Whatever it is. You must accept and love this part of you that makes you want to hide. Sometimes its what drives you to the accomplishments so you can hide what you feel; for example, getting degrees to show you are smart enough.

Trying to make these parts of us that we don’t like to go away, doesn’t solve anything. Like me, you will reach for that motivational book or looking for a formula to get past adversity, and not get far. Why do you keep ending up in the same place? The feelings don’t need to go away, they have a message for you to tune into.

Feel the sensations

As we say when you are shifting from surviving to thriving, “you have to feel it to heal it!” You can look for answers from everyone else and everywhere else, but the best answer to finally getting past hiding to being who you authentically are lies within you. Tune in and listen to your gut.

When you look at yourself through curiosity instead of judgement, like a scientist and accept the dark parts you hide, you will finally get to the deepest part of you that is who you are.

Maybe you will find that you had a role to play that you couldn’t fit. Or maybe you will find that you did this role well, but you were also so many other things; and though you couldn’t be too many things and be a jack of all trades and a master or none.

Your feelings are connected

If the feelings hurt going in, without a doubt, they are going to hurt going out when you release them. Don’t try and push the feelings back down and say I don’t want to feel unworthy, weak, stupid etc. You have a single internal knob.

When you try to turn down the feelings and say you never want to feel a certain way again, you end up turning down all feelings. You can’t just turn down only the hurt feelings and leave the happiness; you end up also turning down love, connectedness, fulfilment. Its all on the same knob.

Work on these feelings, get deeper and deeper, till you embrace who you are, and become who you were always meant to be. Unlearn what you have been programed with. To do further internal work, I recommend working with the “Inner Child Workbook” by Cathryn Taylor.

You are the light at the end of the tunnel

Do you remember what its like to laugh from deep within? If you can’t remember this, do you remember seeing a young child laugh? If you are wondering why I mentioned “don’t remember” its because I was so far gone into fitting in a role that I didn’t remember.

The feelings from deep within feel good. The joy within feels good. Likewise, what you create from deep within will feel good. Who you are feels good. Let go of the toxic shame. Create a life you love from this inner core. Create a career or business you love. Nurture yourself from within.

When you open up yourself and let all that stuff out, let all that stuff go, (even the accomplishments we hide behind) it leaves room for you to grow. The growth that comes from within is much greater than any other growth you will experience.

Give yourself permision

This internal growth is much greater than any motivational video or book you will ever come across. The motivational work has its place, don’t get me wrong, it shifted me in the right direction plenty of times. But if you are looking to finally get past those hurdles, look within.

It’s a lot of work. It hurts. Your brains primary function is to keep you alive. Your mind is going to do everything it can to keep you alive and keep you safe. And that means it will avoid feeling pain. So, it will avoid the work and stop you from looking within.

But its worth it to live the rest of your life being who you are, and feeling this deep love, fulfilment, joy: all the feelings we naturally search for. Is it worth doing all the work to be who you are? Please comment below to give others courage who are trying to do this work and become who they are.

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