Being Yourself

Most of us live our adult lives as confused children; what do I mean by this? Imagine a child holding a mirror and staring at her reflection, she becomes so fascinated by what she sees, she forgets who she is. Not only that but if you watch carefully, when she wants to fix something on her hair that is out of place she does it by clumsily attempting to fix the wrong side. She is focus on the wrong side because mirrors offer a distort image of oneself. As we grow up, we tend to approach life in the same way a child would attempt to fix her hair while looking at her reflection…we focus on the wrong things.

When we look at a mirror, what are we looking for? We usually look at the mirror to make sure we are neat and tidy, to see how the outfit looks; does it make our butt look big? are we pretty enough?  Ultimately what we are looking for is reassurance.

Instead of looking for reassurance we need to start looking for revelation. How do we do this? certainly not by looking into a distorted image but rather at a true mirror; the one within ourselves; let us not forget that social reformation begins not at a group scale but rather within oneself, as such all we can do is work on us and if possible, requested and needed offer guidance without impositions.

When we look at remarkable individuals (remarkable not by monetary success alone but because they did what they set out to do) we find the thing they have in common is that they have nothing in common!

Whether you are looking at Geophysicists, politicians, singers, actors, the everyday person, the trait that links them, the one thing that makes them remarkable, is that they have figured out their unique gift; the one the universe gave them. They embrace it by putting it to the service of their goals; when we do this we become complete.

Discovering your unique gift doesn’t dictate your job choice, it dictates HOW you do it. Those remarkable people become in our eyes larger than life. Believe it or not most of us, live apologizing for our own existence; we live seeking external validation or try to take as little space as possible when the universe intended so much more for us.

Individuality really is all it is cracked up to be  People who embrace their individuality, their weirdness, those are the ones who shine as if they have swallowed a shooting star or the moon.

“Your job is not to be like anyone else, not even like those remarkable people who helped changed history or many lives; your job is to be as different from anyone else as you can because you are you and they are they.  Be as good at being you as they are at being themselves”

One way to start becoming the real you is by consciously asking yourself not what you expect of life but rather what does life expect you.  None of us know when it will be our last day on this planet; statistically in well develop countries life expectancy is about 80 years old; however, in certain parts of the world your life expectancy can be as little as mid thirties–this means we don’t have a lot of time to figure life up.  Our lives are but a spec in the universe continuum. Most of us take our everyday mundane tasks too seriously, allowing stress and other less important things to dictate how our lives are carried; in doing so we forget who we are!

There are two stages in our lives in which we are amazing at being ourselves; one of them is when we are little kids, the other when we are elderly.  Kids are amazing at embracing their weirdness, they do not try to hide it, they just are. They do not care if others like them or not.  They do not go around trying to impress you by pretending to be someone they are not.  Similarly, the elderly do not have time nor patience to hide who they really are; everything intensifies, and so they challenge the rules more and learn to say no.  They become more honest, less compromising, more authentic; at that stage in our lives we no longer care to impress anyone.

When we meet people who embrace themselves, who do not compromise and who will tell you what they think openly, we call them eccentric or rebellious.
Why do we do that? Because they challenge us to look in and to remember who we are past the mask of conditioning.  If one isn’t ready to look in, then the interaction with such person will feel uncomfortable.

People go around saying “Life starts once you get out of your comfort zone”. I notice a lot of people saying it without understanding its actual meaning. “Uncomfortable” can be good, not just when trying new sports or foods but when challenging our beliefs.

Ever since I was a little girl, I liked to question things; to me life always seemed more than what was in front of me. As a young adult I invested my time in joining different religions and groups, studying the occult, studying ancient history and arts. The more I did that, the less I could understand why people fought so much over what seems to me the same thing. I couldn’t imagine any God being proud of all the hate and blood shed in its name.  The mixture of my learnings along with my own mistakes and the many hurts imposed by others, led me to embrace spirituality. There is a saying which I believe wholeheartedly in “Religion is for those who are afraid of going to hell, spirituality is for those who have been there” 
Sometimes you have to go through the worst to understand the fullness of this life and your part in it.

I am not saying leave your religion; I am simply being myself and expressing my personal experiences.  If your religion makes you genuinely a better person; not only with those who share similar beliefs; then good for you. I simply believe that in order to really love something or someone you have to know it, not just conceptually but actually seek to understand it and experience it. The more you get to know something or someone the more your ability to understand will grow as well as your attachment; this is very true when seeking a relationship with the divine within and without.

Most religions teachings aren’t the problem; to me the problem lies in the limited interpretation of those teaching it. God is not limited to one book or one building or one day a week. God is the infinite universe, which you can find within yourself and only when you truly understand yourself will you develop an intimate relationship with  the divine.

We say God/the universe has expressed itself in everything there is…damn right!
Look around you, do you see everything looking the same? Hell no!…why do do we erroneously belief we are all to fit one mold?

Nature is a big example of individuality while remaining connected.  It is so diverse, it exists for its sake, it is not thinking about the rest of the world– yet by thriving it helps everything and everyone around. We are also expressions of the great divine force and just like in nature we are very diverse. I don’t have to act like you to go to a heaven somewhere. My purpose in life is to be me and yours should be to be you.

To summarize; we cannot go back to being children, nor should we wait to become old in order to develop character/backbone; it seems to me the solution is to embrace ourselves as we did in childhood. If we can combine the magick and authenticity of just being us; as we were during our childhood; with the wisdom life’s lessons has taught us so far, then we’ll be on the path to reclaiming ourselves–we’ll learn to embrace and love ourselves…that is when we start to truly live!

I believe when we start the journey within ourselves; the one that helps us rediscover who we were meant to be; is when life becomes fuller and we start to see the immense possibilities.  Our perception of the world changes as we go from seeing and treating ourselves like little ants to the awesome beings that we are–the awesome beings we have always been!