Know Yourself to Be Yourself

How is your radical self-acceptance going?  Are you feeling like a beautiful rose bush with lush blooms, sturdy roots, and healthy foliage?

Or are you a little wild, growing out of control with more thorns than blossoms?

Doesn’t matter - because you’re perfect just as you are!

However, most of us desire the first description.  It’s just our nature. As part of the human race, we thrive on health, natural beauty, and order.  It just feels right, it feels like home.  In fact, it's homeostasis - that place where we feel balanced and at ease.

But what if I am feeling a little prickly?

Well, let’s review everything I’ve suggested in the past few blog posts. 

And while we’re at it, let’s hone in on that word, suggested. Hey, I’m not claiming truth here, nor am I trying to convince anyone of anything. I’m just navigating my own journey, learning my lessons, and landing on what resonates and allows for that sense of ease. It’s based on experience, research, readings, awareness, prayer, reflection, and openness. And I simply offer it to you for your consideration and application in your own life.  Take what feels right, leave what doesn’t.

Back to the review:

1. Your creator created you just as you were supposed to be.  No mistakes.

2. Therefore, you’re perfect where and as you are in this very moment.  You should radically accept yourself just as you are.

3. However, you’re part of nature. The nature that is forever expanding, changing, growing, and expiring.

4. Therefore, you’re still and again perfect in all of your growth and change.

5. However, when you strive to grow or change into something that you were never made to be, that’s when dissatisfaction overwhelms. Negative self-talk overpowers. The striving never ends because you’re reaching for a goal that is a figment of your imagination. Homeostasis is disrupted and dis-ease sets in.

So where does this leave us?  I don’t know about you, but I’m often left with tension and confusion as I try to grow or change alongside self-acceptance. In those moments (sometimes few, sometimes many) that I recognize I want something to be different, let’s even say better. But if I’m perfect now, how can I be better?

This takes us back to the rosebush metaphor.  It desires nourishment and pruning in order to vibrantly thrive. However, there are four main points to this.

1. It never has an expectation to be anything other than a rosebush.

2. It doesn’t force its health and vibrancy into being.  It takes what is offered to it in effortless stride and allows its beauty to naturally evolve. 

3. When it’s not tended to, it doesn’t shame itself for becoming overgrown, thorny, and lackluster. It’s confident in knowing that it retains full capacity to return to a balanced, dynamic thing of beauty when it’s properly cared for. 

4. It’s not attached to what no longer serves. As a leaf browns, or a bloom withers, it either naturally releases, or it welcomes the pruning - understanding that it is best served when it can let go. Even if it’s letting go of something that appears healthy.

So that’s the rub - how do I tend to or properly care for my whole self without going against those four premises? 

I’ll briefly touch on all four, but in separate entries.  Let’s start with the first.

1. It never has an expectation to be anything other than a rosebush.

In order for you to be exactly you, you must know exactly you. Get comfortable with yourself. Don’t second guess yourself. Honor your natural tendencies, preferences, temperament, personality, gifts, talents, flaws.

How? Well, the possibilities are infinite, but let’s start small. I suggest simply spending time with yourself in silence, zero activity. Just sit and be for at least seven minutes. And for those seven minutes, just observe. Notice where your thoughts go. Notice what sensations you experience in your body. Notice the tone of the words you use with yourself. Notice, notice, notice without judgment or redirection.

After you’ve spent those seven minutes observing, then journal about the experience.  Act as though you’re being interviewed, going into as much detail as you can. Again, without judgement. This is just you! Unscripted, untethered, and free to be.

Of course there are so many more ways to cultivate self-awareness (shameless plug - yoga is also a wonderful option), but the key is to just start with something.

Why? Why in the world is it so important to ‘know thyself’?

It all boils down to clarity.  If we’re not crystal clear on what we do and do not like, want, prefer, resonate with, and crave, then we’re quite susceptible to influence.  Cultural, familial, traditional, commercial, economical, social - all sorts of influences. Their persuasive ways are cunning, and we often end up chasing something that is actually important to someone or something else.  This is what I call trying to be a cherry tree when you’re really a rose bush.

 And this will forever cause dis-ease in your being.

Reflect for a bit. Think of a couple daily or weekly actions that bring a bit of resistance when it’s time to do them. Then ask yourself.  Is this what I want to be doing? Or is it because it’s always been valued in my family. Or am I doing the ‘keeping up with the Jones’ thing’? Perhaps a spouse/partner expects it out of me, or I at least have the perception that they expect it. Maybe it’s something glittery that I’ve seen over and over again on one screen or another, unwittingly becoming attracted to it just out of sheer exposure. Maybe it’s just normal and easy and I never thought to question it.

And don’t even get me started on how our thoughts and feelings are shaped through all of those influences. Maybe what felt right to you has been publicly shamed in sitcoms or other forms of entertainment. Maybe the news is stealthily (more likely blatantly) telling you where to land on controversial issues.

Take a breath.

Spend time with yourself, reclaim your true desires and essence, and honor exactly who you are.

I understand. It’s easier said than done. But just trust that it’s an ongoing process. And even the smallest of steps in that direction will get you closer to home (homeostasis). This is where your nervous system is calm and resilient.  This is where you’re your best self.

As always, I’d love to walk this walk with you. I’m not some guru that ‘has arrived!’. I’m definitely still on this journey. But I am compassionate, I’ve learned a few things, and I listen. My purpose is to offer support to anyone that is seeking it.

Check out my services here on the site.

Reiki, Wellness Coaching, Yoga - they’re all great places to start.

In love,

Michelle