There is a strength and a freedom in being ourselves, and not feeling like we have to conform and meet the expectations of others. It’s cool to be different, interesting to be unique, and amazingly gratifying to be our true selves. So why do we spend so much time and energy trying to fit in? Perhaps it is because of the shame we feel, and the fear that people will judge and reject us if they knew the real us. It doesn’t have to be like this.
The idea of conforming starts early in life and begins to play out in the kindergarten playground, where those that are noticeably different can become the subject of ridicule and torment. There is a price to pay for being different or not fitting into the “norm”. But that was then. We were too young to do anything expect suffer the torment, or do our best to look and act like everyone else. Now as adults we no longer have to be governed by this.
We can choose to accept who we are and how we are in the world. We can be ourselves. Once we truly accept ourselves, any attempts to criticize or ridicule us have no power. They will just slide off us like water off a duck’s back. And a rather curious phenomenon happens – our would-be critics and tormentors seem to sense that we accept ourselves unconditionally, and they often won’t even utter the criticisms or judgments. They seem to instinctively know that it is they who will look foolish and misguided when we simply smile with amusement at their futile attempts to put us down.
Comparing Our Life to Others
There is a temptation when we are sensitized and suffering from anxiety to look at friends, neighbors, co-workers and people we pass in the street and be jealous of them. We may see them laughing or going about things seemingly without a care in the world. We wonder why we can’t be like that, and it adds to our despair. We assume their lives are so much better than ours.
While it may be true they are not suffering from anxiety the way they do, it is really unhelpful to assume their lives are without suffering. We have no idea what may be going on for them underneath their happy exterior. My bet is that you don’t show how much you suffer to other people, and neither do they.
Regardless of how someone else’s life is, it simply doesn’t help to compare. Comparisons do nothing but reinforce our misery and despair, because we always conclude that our life is terribly unfair, and that we will never recover.
Comparisons are always unhelpful. They lead to judgment, and in our frame of mind that judgment will always be negative. In any case, judgments are never good because they take us away from how something is and cause us to focus on how we think they ought to be, or how we want them to be. Comparisons lead to judgments, and judgments are the enemy of acceptance.
Social Media
In a previous blog, I described how the difficulties around authentically being ourselves are amplified by social media. It places us under a microscope at a time when we are feeling extremely vulnerable and insecure.
Social media is not a safe place to begin opening up to others because of the easy access it gives people to judge, criticize and condemn us. We need to begin the process of opening up about our true selves to those we can trust first. When our confidence has grown, we will feel able to do so with those we don’t know as well, and even with total strangers.
But this needs to be a progressive growth. It mat help in the early stages to reduce time spent on social media, and definitely to not use it to compare ourselves unfavorably to others.
Learn to Love Being Ourselves
The inadequacy, shame and embarrassment we feel doesn’t come from the outside, but from our self-judgment and self-criticism. It is the outside criticism that triggers our internal criticism, and it is this self-judgement and self-criticism that does the real damage.
But just as we have the ability to put ourselves down, we have the ability to choose instead to smile and give ourselves unconditional acceptance.
Give yourself the approval and acceptance that you have previously sought from others.
If we are unable to accept ourselves, how could we possibly expect others to accept us? But if we truly accept ourselves, magically we’ll find most people join us and accept us without question or judgment.
We already know this from our own behavior. It is always easier to criticize someone who is insecure about themselves. And we admire people who can truly be themselves; who feel no need to pretend to be better, prettier, smarter, more talented than anyone else. And we instinctively accept them too just as they are.
There is the answer. We can be that way too. We don’t need to seem smarter, make ourselves prettier, or develop some amazing talent. All we have to do is be ourselves. Being ourselves and accepting who we are (rather than making futile attempts to change) is the path to recovery.
That’s it. Just be ourselves. It isn’t our looks, intellect or talents that people ultimately admire; it is the honesty and openness we project when we love ourselves and like ourselves unconditionally.
Be yourself. Be kind to yourself. Give yourself the approval and acceptance that you have previously sought from others.
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(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)
