How to find your true self?
With the lifestyle we live at the moment, we got used to pretending, escaping and avoiding. Situations when you need to speak up, you remain quite. In relationships where you need to connect, you escape. In life where you just want to be yourself, you pretend and fake.
We can’t deny the environmental and society pressure we face either from home, work, family and friends. It contributes a lot towards our current attitudes today.
Sometimes I get curious when these questions pop: Where did my true self go? Why is it hiding? Why is it avoiding? Until when your true self will be covered?
It is cool to live life and just be yourself without manipulations. But then comes the peer pressure, the conditioning from childhood, the work pressure, the interpersonal conflicts and the traumatizing effects from life circumstances. All those push your true self away and force you to stay small, invisible, hiding and barely mentally and emotionally present.
But when there is only 1% of spark and inspiration inside you for the possibility to change to better, all those environmental side effects start to loosen up and let go of your tight grip.
So the question here: How to find your true self? How can we answer this question.. This needs lots of personal reflections and contemplations in your alone time. You may use the following props to guide you through:
What happened to me?
What interpretations I created in my mind due to the life events faced?
Why did I choose to hide my true self? What am I avoiding here?
What are the little glimpse and signs of my true self? When and where do they often show up?
How can I recover my true self? What can I do to get to know it and relate to it?
Keep in mind, there would be pain and strong feelings you need to feel and process during this personal discovery journey. I know many who escape doing this personal work all together because of the severity of the pain that they will need to feel again. Still this is worth doing if you want to be truthful towards yourself and others around you.
At the end, remember this is a contribution towards humanity. Whatever inner work you do, it is like you bring liveliness and vibrancy back to the humanity. Remember your uniqueness, purpose of your existence and the precious gifts you are meant to bring to the world. Don’t deny them. They exist inside you. And it is your job to retrieve them back and generously share.