Just Be You
Believe it or not, you are utterly worth being.
Allow me to state some uncomfortable facts. Many people dislike themselves. Some even go so far as to hate themselves. I know this struggle. I’ve disliked myself on and off for most of my adult life.
A lot of this was due to outside messages and influences. I was shown all sorts of examples of how I was imperfect, not enough, insufficient, lacking, and doing it wrong. This could be applied to jobs, relationships, romantic relationships, family, you name it. Everywhere I turned there were messages about how I was screwing up, disappointing people, and generally living life as something of a fuck up.
When I started to really study the ideas of conscious reality creation, active conscious awareness, and mindfulness, I began to see those influences more clearly. They were the beliefs, values, and ideals of other people. What’s more, they exist on multiple levels.
The most abstract is the societal and organizational level. Celebrity influencers, politicians, religious leaders, business leaders, gurus, and other people who most likely don’t know you or me at all. You and I know their names, positions, and lots of other things, and are driven to compare ourselves and numerous elements of our lives to them. This is, however, utterly impersonal and imaginary.
Zooming in, there’s the local and community level. This is where teachers, doctors, coworkers, bosses, and the like exist. They might know you and me, but only on an impersonal level. Yet somehow, they and their beliefs, values, and ideals can be influential.
Then you get to the personal level. This is where parents, siblings, friends, lovers, and everyone else close to you – but still not you – lives. These are often the people most likely to make you feel unworthy.
Who do they think you are?
The people at that closest level, the personal level, think they know you. They have an impression of who you are, how you fit into their life, and how they think you fit into their life.
Think about it. You put the people in your life in places related to you. Parents, siblings, friends, lovers, they all have a place in your head, heart, and soul. It’s not a place they can access, it’s the place where you put them.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that they do this to and with you.
Here’s where this gets even more complicated. From an early age, you’re hardwired to please other people. You likely consider the impact the things you say and do will have on those people. Specifically, the people at this close level. They do, after all, share a piece of your heart that you have given to them.
On this level, they most readily show disapproval and disappointment. Sometimes it’s unintentionally cruel and unusual. Other times, they think they are offering you something “for your own good.” Sometimes this is indifference that’s meant to be helpful but actually makes you feel bad. And sometimes there is malice of forethought and actual cruelty expressed, both with potential good and bad intent.
When you meet the negatives on the personal level, intentional or not, it can find its way to those more abstract levels. It’s not too hard to conclude that everyone, even those who don’t know you, thinks you’re a loser.
The thing is, all of this is outside of you. Meaning it’s only true if you accept it to be true.
Just be you
Who are you? That can be a tricky question.
If you dislike or even hate yourself, odds are your answer is an amalgam of those outside influences. More specifically, how you interpret them and take them into your head, heart, and soul. If you’re constantly told you’re not enough, you’re a screw-up, you suck, and so on, this should come as no surprise.
This, however, is not the truth. Whoever anyone else thinks you are is not you. That’s entirely on them, and wholly their belief, as applied from their biases, impressions, and other intangibles you have no access to or control of.
It can be incredibly hard to just be you when you think you’re who they tell you that you are. If you believe those outside voices and influences, it’s easy to feel bad about yourself, dislike and even hate yourself.
Okay, so what? Here comes the amazing part. You can shunt all this away and move past it. This requires that you just be you.
To do that you need active conscious awareness. In practice, mindfulness.
Mindfulness to just be you
What can you do to break this cycle? How do you get away from these false beliefs about yourself resulting from others? How do you just be you?
Mindfulness. This is active conscious awareness in practice. Mindfulness begins by asking and answering questions, here and now, about your inner mindset/headspace/psyche self. These questions include:
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
- What is my intention?
- Is my approach to this or that situation positive or negative?
- What am I doing?
All of these can only be answered, genuinely, here and now. These are how you begin from a conscious place to look into your subconscious self.
Your subconscious is where your beliefs, values, and habits live. The thing is, though they live here, they might not be wholly yours. That’s because sometimes beliefs and values instilled in you and me by others take root and hide in your subconscious until you go looking for them. Other times, you installed them at some point in the past but failed to update them over time.
Mindfulness is how you take the wheel and start doing the driving. It’s the process that lets you see the artifices for what they are and learn what it takes and what it means to just be you.
Great. How does this fix my dislike of myself, you might ask? First, identify the aspects of that dislike that come from outside influences. Whether personal or abstract, it takes mindfulness to see if they truly belong to you or if you just think they do.
Now comes the part where I am going to ask you to take a leap of faith.
You are worthy and deserving of it all
Depression, anxiety, and other mental and emotional health elements will make you feel unworthy. The messages from outside influencers will convince you via a constant bombardment of information that you’re undeserving – no matter the topic at hand.
That’s a lie. Just be you because you are utterly worthy and deserving. No matter what the topic is, you’re worthy and deserving of it. Material or immaterial, tangible or intangible, you are worthy and deserving of it.
Why? Because you are here to live. To experience life and all it has to offer. Good, bad, or otherwise, you’re meant to experience the gamut. You don’t need to be rich, thin, gorgeous, wealthy, wise, or any other label of supposed superiority you can think of. Just be you because you are valuable to the world in your own way.
I know how hard that can be to believe. So many messages out there are telling you that you’re lacking, not enough, and otherwise insufficient. However, you are enough. You are more than enough and worth loving and being loved.
Please allow me to challenge you to something. No matter how seemingly insignificant it might be, write down 10 things about yourself that you like. They can be as petty and vain and selfish as they might seem to be but don’t discount them. My eyes are pretty, my hair is great, my voice is sexy, I’m a great kisser – and everything of that ilk counts. Write it down.
Feel how that makes you like yourself. Ignore any and all voices telling you it’s selfish, or wrong, or offering any other negative judgment. Like that about yourself? Feel it.
Just be you for you
I know what it’s like to dislike, loathe, and even hate yourself. Been there, done that, no longer fit into the t-shirt. Please know that you are not a bad person, you’re not unworthy, and you are not somehow hated and hateable more than you’re loving and loveable.
Mindfulness can help you see if what you believe is authentically yours or the impression made on you by outside influencers. Either way, you have the power to change this and just be you for you.
You’re empowered to just be you. And I believe that you are utterly worth being. Recognize what’s good and great about yourself, and give that more of your attention and focus. Hopefully, disliking, loathing, and hating yourself will fade away in the face of that.
Thank you for being you.
Can you see why you might not like yourself because of people and things who aren’t you?
This is the six-hundred-sixty-second (662) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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