Free to Be…You and Me

May 19, 2008 - 16:07 PM PST
I was at the park the other day and watched this little girl play with her dad. She was building sand castles and he was telling her the “right” way to build them. The little girl was persistent on building them her way, yet he kept showing her the correct way.
She looked under four years of age and eventually began to just do it the way her dad was telling her.

It is here where we learn that we are not allowed to fully be who we are. Sounds odd, but this is truly what causes stress in our world. We are constantly bombarded with ways in which to be better, stronger, thinner, you name it that we fail to recognize our own unique and awesome qualities. I am asked to write often on the concept of health. I find it odd that in all the literature I have read on “causes of stress” and “depression and anxiety” that there is no mention of authenticity.
We are given self help steps, and possibly medication but what we are really seeking is to be seen, acknowledged, heard and appreciated for just being us.
I went on a date for the first time in awhile and I noticed how much I wanted to change myself. I was a chameleon of sorts, which led me to always feel alone in relationships of all types and frustrated that the other person did not “get me.”

They didn’t get me because I was too afraid to be me- say what I felt and share without fear of being judged or “rejected.”
It is vital for our well being that we begin to celebrate and discover who we are. Little kids are so rockin at this. There is no right or wrong way of discovering, play is open ended and with the “mis-takes” we have we are gifted with lessons of self knowledge and respect.
Those who judge me for being who I am are people I don’t want to hang with. Hanging with people who want me to be someone other then me at this point do harm to my over all health.
It is so much easier to just be who we are. To bring in the job, relationship, friends and experiences that supports us being ourselves. The revolution has begun. Speak out, share from your heart and do not hide from your own truth.
I triple dog dare you.
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Free to Be…You and Me


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1 Comments

Jul 05, 2008 - 12:57 PM

jslick on
I hope that you are never anyone else except yourself. I totally agree with you (of course). Over the last couple years I have been on a quest to be as authentic as I can be. This is not easy to do in our society and especially in Los Angeles. It appears that human beings love to label each other and such labels cause us to try to live up to be what we are labeled (even when we label ourselves).

One example that I can't get out of my mind is how a former co-worker and current friend of mine would call me "attractive" once in a while. Most people would probably take this as a nice compliment and while my ego does enjoy such comments I realized that being called attractive was just a label. I believe beauty is in the eye of the beholder and while I might be attractive to one person I could be ugly to another. I realized that I'm not ugly and I'm not beautiful, I'm just me. And I like me (most of the time). True beauty is found when people just be themselves and stop trying to fit in a category or be someone else. Not being yourself is an unattractive quality.

I also recently observed how early we are taught not to be authentic. I was baby-sitting a 4 year-old a few days ago and he was counting his toys out loud. When he counted he would skip the number 13 and when he got to 29 he would continue by saying "twenty-ten," "twenty-eleven," and so on. I of course corrected him on this and told him the "right" way to count. When I did this he looked at me and said, "I do it differently, I count my own way." I immediately felt conflicted. He was expressing such a strong desire to be himself and not act how society wanted him to. I did not want to stifle his authenticity. I also realized that my criticizing his counting method had caused him stress. I caused a 4 year-old stress. However, I realized that although I might be very understanding of his new way of counting, his teachers, schools, and society would not be so understanding. I concluded that in order to function in modern society and be "successful" he would have to conform. There was no reasonable way around it. I had to squash his uniqueness. I felt guilty about it though. There was a part of me that just wanted to say "Okay, you can count in any way you want." This is obviously a very simple example, like the sand castle, but it clearly illustrates the point.

The point is that our tendency to project the "right way," labels, and expectations upon others causes stress and other problems. We would all be more peaceful if we just were ourselves. This is even evident in world conflict. Different countries try to impose their values onto other countries and even use force to try to do so. This is outrageous! We all need to just live and let live. Just be yourself and let others be who they are.