DON’T BE FRIGHTENED OF YOURSELF!!!

Those of you who have been following my blogs over the many years I have been doing them, will know that somewhere I say, in some form or another, ‘Be Yourself as that is why we are here’. My blog today is about why this can be so difficult for us.

Being Yourself

Perhaps you are saying to yourself – ‘I am myself most of the time and don’t know what she is talking about’. And my challenge to you is –

Do you have the courage to really be yourself?
Are you hiding behind a mask(s) to keep the parts of
You that you don’t want to own be seen by the world?

Most of you (if you were honest with yourself) would say that your mask(s) enabled you to deal with life and were needed at some point for whatever reason – so no wonder you have needed this protection as you saw, heard and felt how others responded to parts of you that weren’t considered okay.

It may be that the remarks you heard or sensed weren’t even directed at you. They may have been addressed about some others’ behaviour and you decided not to do that or be like that so that you weren’t shamed, punished, excluded as you saw happening and you could be liked.

Shadow

Of course, I am talking here about the shadow aspects of ourselves that we deny and try to keep hidden. I can tell you that It takes so so so much energy to keep these parts of ourselves hidden. And just think of what you could be doing with it!!!

It could be that you hide your sensitivity or insecurity by coming across as arrogant and in control. Or perhaps you use humour or sharpness to hide your hurt or pain.

How is it that when you are aligned with yourself, being yourself, others can pick this up and will be drawn to you and it’s not obvious why they are to them? You have stopped using up all this energy trying to hide. And, as you know, others can also pick it up when you are not being real e.g. the old one of that fake smile and yet everyone is picking up on the anger behind it – however much you deny when asked, ‘Are you okay?’.

Projections

There are also other aspects we see clearly in others –

laziness, worthless, dishonesty (in whatever form),
always being late, noisy, boastful, angry, vengeful, racist,
neediness, selfish, weak, nasty, madness, rudeness, liars,
narrow minded, have to be right, losers, victims, show-offs, boastful
……………………………………………..
I could go on and perhaps you would like to put your own words.

I am talking about what we project onto others without owning these in ourselves. It is so hard to own – not so easy at all that we have them too.

I will also put in there that we can also project all the positive qualities we see in others and not own that they are within us as well. Today I am focusing more on the negative qualities.

Both-And

Something else I keep banging on about is ‘both-and’. In psychosynthesis, the model I trained and taught in, it is about owning that we are both good and bad, light and dark, lazy and conscientious ….. and so on. What this does is enable us to stop having the internal struggle to only be the positive aspects or even the negative aspects.

When you can hold the both-and parts of you then you will no longer fear your Shadow and can be Yourself. And you need time to respect and appreciate what all the parts of you have done for you. Oh yes, before I forget they also contain a gift too – the richness and fullness of you.

I will return to this blog and add some more next time.

Meanwhile, I hope it will leave you with the possibility of not being frightened of being Yourself.