You Can Be Yourself — Really. Not only do we tend to suppress the…
By: Deborah Baron
Tags: Self, Truth, Self Love, Personal Development, Wellbeing

Not only do we tend to suppress the deep-seated desire to express our true selves when we’re around other people, we also shy away from getting in touch with that part of ourselves when we’re alone.- Dan Pedersen

What does it mean to really be yourself? Who are you when you are truly yourself?

I used to forget. I used to think that I had to be what everyone else expected me to be or at least what my self-talk told me that everyone expected me to be. And you know what, it totally sucked. I was so stressed out most of the time that when I came home I would take it out on my family. Somehow I thought that they were supposed to put up with me.

Do you know what happens when you let yourself be yourself? You relax. It is the most amazing feeling to trust yourself. To give up the false idea that anyone knows better than you. And when you think about it how could they? I assure you that no one has better access to universal wisdom than you do.

You don’t need me to tell you that you are wise. Underneath any thinking to the contrary, you know this. I know you do.

…when everything is stripped away, there’s one constant that remains: the spirit. — Dan Pedersen

And you can live in the spirit when you get out from under the cluttered space of thought and truly, finally, let yourself be yourself.

Each and every one of us has the same and the most complete and the most incredible access to divine wisdom. It is inside of you and you were born with it. No need to go searching. You’ve already got this!

I rediscovered this in myself a few years ago when I first came across the 3 principles.

The first thing I heard in this understanding was “you can be yourself”. I remembered being myself. I was that way in college and I loved it. Insecurity couldn’t find me, self consciousness couldn’t find me. I did what made sense to me in the moment; trusted my gut, trusted my instinct, trusted that place of wisdom inside of myself to guide me minute to minute.

That’s not to say that I didn’t have ups and downs during those year, I did. I noticed it and that itself was an insight. I noticed the cyclical nature of our experience. That sometimes we feel better and sometimes we feel worse and that we live in a resonance, up down, up down. So every time we feel crappy we can count on feeling better and yes, sorry to say, every time we feel great, we can count on feeling worse again.

But the ups and downs do not need to be a problem. Feeling down is simply a state of mind with a judgment put on it. It is another feeling that brings forward the juice of life. If we didn’t experience the lows, how would we ever notice the highs? So why judge?

I came out of college and lost myself for a long time. I started thinking that other people in my life knew better than me, especially if they criticized me, I tried so hard to live up to their expectations.

Turns out that losing yourself, trying to be something you are not, can feel like a lot of pressure, the most unproductive kind of pressure. For me, it feels like stress.

See we all have an unlimited source of wisdom within us. We were born with it and it is evidenced in the fact that we teach ourselves how to crawl, walk, and talk. And then we forget, forget that this wisdom is in us and we go looking for it on the outside.

But the good news is that it never left.

When you let your thinking settle, let yourself settle back into the space of a quiet mind, the wisdom that was there all along starts to shine back through.

The whispered wisdom shows itself again and we hear it. In every moment, in every hour, and every day.

It is a surrender, a loosening, an allowing yourself to be yourself.

Let yourself listen to the true you that lives under the chatter. Under the striving part of you, the insecure part of you, I know it is a habit…me too. But you don’t need to listen to it.

One of my clients recently went so far as to call her thoughts lies. And she was right. What freedom to admit, to recognize, that your thoughts are lying to you.

See what lives under your thoughts; your spirit, your soul, the space before the ego.

Yes, your ego is trying to protect you from pain. You can let go because, in fact, the pain can not actually reach you. You have everything you need in your essence. Let it all go and you will find your true self underneath. Trust wisdom to show up in each moment and give you exactly what you need to enter the next moment.

You can live in the present, you don’t need to live in the past or in the future. Clear your mind of the clutter and find your true self. In this, you will find perfection. In this, you will find satisfaction. You do not need to be afraid. All is perfect in the now.