Being yourself seems like the most basic, primal, natural thing about being a human being. It's not.
Almost from the time you begin taking your first steps, everyone in your sphere begins to manifest desires for innate expectations they have of you. It may be the hopes and dreams of your mother--that you become just like her--or out of love pray that you not emulate her choices in ways she feels held her back in life. At the age of five she may already see you through misty eyes as a Nobel Laureate, a dancer, an Olympic athlete, a professor, Miss America. She may yearn with her whole being to prove to the world that you too possess her amazing sprint time, her artistic vision, her love of cooking, her vocabulary. Her joy d' vivre. Her sarcasm. Her hopeful heart. Other times, as you toddle toward her with outstretched hands she may yearn for just a few blessed moments to herself. She's only human.
Your father may want you to follow in his professional footsteps...or do anything but. He may hope that you far surpass him financially, or instead have a hot white fear that you will. He may expect you to excel at sports despite your charming lack of coordination. He may insist that you study too hard or party too hard. He may press you to be able to kick someone's ass when affronted--when you would rather use words. He may want to toughen you up out of the deepest place of love...or out of his own pride or fear. He's only human too.
Your siblings and relatives, your friends, your teachers, pediatricians, neighbors, random stangers--all seem to have expectations of you from the get-go that sometimes have little to do with who you really are. You think that if the real you slipped through--that their love will be pulled back.
And so you watch. You listen. You adapt. You revel in similarities and hide what doesn't connect. It seems like the right thing to do, the prudent thing. You try to hold on to the ever thinner thread to who you were born to be while--swiftly changing masks and setting goals that are often truly more for someone else, a someone else who becomes more vague and vaporous over time. You bury any unsupported or "unwise" thoughts and dreams. Your practical self holds the shovel.
This is how you learn to survive. This is how you experience love.
Not for everyone, but for most, this goes on for years and years. Life swoops in and pulls you this way and that. That tiny voice inside yourself is quieted by necessity, duty and distraction. It grows more and more distant, more silent.
Then one day, as if waking up from a long sleep, you realize that the voice within cannot be silenced any longer. Even if it costs you everything, you must fan its flames. You trade in the dulled-down reality you have allowed to prevail in order to survive--for the technicolor person you were meant to be. You throw away the shoes that never fit, you toss the empty plans that were never honestly yours, you peel off the masks, one by one.
There will be people in your life who liked the masks because the masks were created to appease them--so they may not like the real you after all, the one they cannot control. As hard as that may be, its ok. Anyone who needs you to fit into their box instead of following the direction of your heart does not deserve to be in the driver's seat of your life. Real love is freeing, not enslaving.
Slowly, and with the precarious steps of the toddler you were when your life was first becoming hijacked, you start moving in the direction of your heart's desires. You feel you might be alone forever this way, but that's when the magic happens. You start attracting people who are in better allignment with who you really are. As you blossom into your true self you find kindred spirits who couldn't find you as long as you were hiding behind your masks.
And the ones who always geniunely loved you will never leave your side anyway. You must lovingly allow them to adjust to this "new" version of yourself. Now your life centers around a smaller, truer tribe. Life feels more real as you discard everything that no longer serves you. Unhelpful connections. Wrong jobs. Stuff.
As you align your authentic self with your authentic purpose, doors of opportunity begin to swing open--that's how you know you are on track. With the innocence of a child you follow the trail. You no longer desire to control outcomes--just to be, just to discover, just to feel the awe of a child once again. You allow the outcomes that you were meant to experience to reveal themselves. You feel the hand of God on your back.
And for the first time since you took your very first toddler steps, you have taken the most important baby steps of your adult life--surely and truly toward the authentic you.
