
“The most healthy behaviour is simply for you to be authentic.”
Society sometimes makes us think that we are wrong. We are never wrong. What feels right for us will almost always feel wrong for someone else and vice versa. We are all different and we are all enough. As we are. When we are born we don’t have any behaviours or opinions pushed onto us. These come throughout our lives and influence our behaviour.
We all have diamonds inside us and will live the optimum life if they stay that bright and shiny. The trouble is, our true selves get covered up by loads of rubbish from everywhere else…how to speak, what to look like, how to act, etc etc. Parents/society slowly change us into a less authentic person. I’m not saying that they are bad for doing that. It’s just what happens.
It’s really scary to stand alone on some things as it’s so much easier to go along with what everybody else is doing. If you can get through the fear though, it leads to great places.
You don’t have to do what everybody else is doing. Not many people are brave enough not to follow though.
I see it all the time. Followers. It amuses me. I deliberately do not follow. It freaks people out a bit. ‘Normal’ followers think I’m crazy. There are some followers who admire how I live and have the potential to live the optimum lives for them too. I love helping them. Not to follow me, but to follow their own hopes, dreams and desires.
I spoke to someone recently and they told me that they didn’t like their mother whilst they were growing up. They only started to like her when she left their father. That was when she became authentic. She had stayed in the family unit because it’s ‘what you do.’ Doing this had made her unhappy, and obviously affected her children. It’s lovely to hear that she changed the way she lived eventually, though, even though her children had grown up. Some people stay that way forever. This story resonated with me as I can obviously really relate to it and this person was not the first to tell me the same story, they just used different words that really hit home.
My life is so, so different now to how it used to be. For years I thought that how I was living was how I was ‘supposed’ to live, and that it could never change.
Then something did change.
My thoughts.
I realised I could actually live any way I wanted, and do anything I wanted. It wasn’t up to anyone else. It seems so alien to me now that I thought I was trapped in my old life. It seems so wrong too… but I wasn’t the only one, which makes it even worse.
Lots of people think they are trapped in lives that they don’t love, or even like! I know it’s the fear that stops them from changing anything. I also know that getting through the fear is one of the hardest things someone will ever do, but that it does lead to great things at the other end.
It’s so much easier to stay in a situation that isn’t ideal, and to just exist, rather than to leave it and fully live and thrive.
It’s your life though. You only have one, and it’s short. Nobody else can live it for you.
If you have dreams and go for them, it’s only yourself that’s getting in the way.
It became apparent to me a few years ago that me and my husband were no longer compatible and weren’t happy together. We virtually had separate lives whilst living in the same house. I wanted to live in the moment. He wanted to live in the future. A fundamental life difference! I suddenly realised that I was more scared to stay in the marriage than I was to leave. We had tried to make it work but it wasn’t happening.
I am in no way promoting separation/divorce, though. Ever. I love love and just want everyone to be happy, on their own or in a partnership. Relationships take work but this work is worth it. It’s only when two humans are fundamentally different or if there’s abuse that couples need to look at the possibility of ending it. Only when they are sure nothing else can be done and that their lives would be happier if they were apart.
Nobody is bad for wanting to live a happy life.
You don’t get a medal for conforming to societies ideals. I realised this when I turned 40. I had been ‘perfect’ up until then. Perfect wife, mother, daughter, student. Suddenly I did something totally ‘wrong’ to lots of people. I then became imperfect, and that’s when everything changed for the better.
I am now perfectly imperfect. It’s good. You can’t pour from an empty cup. Lots of women put everyone else before themselves as they think it appears selfish if they do things for themselves. This is rubbish. You aren’t any good to anybody if you are run ragged. When you are happy, your family will be happy. If you are running are empty, something is going to give. I know this all too well.
I followed what I ‘should’ have done and then found out it wasn’t for me, and that’s ok. Others are happiest following the crowd and that’s great for them.
It would have been nice for me to have met more older people doing their own thing when I was in my 20s. Maybe it would have inspired me to do more random things. Maybe not.
To live fully and to be of service to others, you must spend your life doing what you love. Full stop. If you aren’t doing what is in line with your highest values or priorities in life, your body will start to tell you. You will frequently become ill. This is a sign that you need to look at how you are actually living and if things need to change for you to become healthier.
You won’t be for everyone, but it shouldn’t affect how you are and how you behave.
You could be the ripest, juiciest apple in the fruit bowl, but some people don’t like apples! Don’t take it personally.
I know it’s hard, but I also know how great it is when you get to a place where you don’t care who likes you!
Be authentic (if you aren’t already) and great things will start to happen. The wrong people will fall away and new, more fitting ones will appear.
I am the same me with anyone I meet. I don’t care who they are and what they do. I treat everybody the same. Some think I’m nuts and some love that I’m genuine. It doesn’t matter to me what they think.
I went to the supermarket recently. My 8-year-old son was with me. He decided he was going to say hello to everyone as he wanted to “spread kindness.”
Almost everyone looked taken aback when he approached them. Some replied, some smiled, some just looked confused and some ignored him. Most importantly though, he did brighten a few people’s day and learnt a little lesson.
Not everyone is going to like you in this world, but as long as you stay true to yourself and see that this doesn’t matter, then you’ll have a good life and will make a difference. No matter how small or big.
It’s sad that being friendly isn’t the ‘done’ thing. Yet!
Anything is possible. I am on a mission.
I truly live each day as though it were my last. I’m not reckless but I do what I want to do. Everyday.
I always tell my clients to “burn your candles!” People keep things for ‘best’ – they only wear lovely clothes for special occasions and keep their candles in the packaging because they don’t want to ‘waste’ them. One of my friends told me that their mum saved everything for best and that, one day, she wasn’t there anymore, but all of her best things were.
A few months ago I picked up a brand new car. My old one was falling apart and I figured a new one would last me ten years, plus I could live in it if I became homeless. It’s beautiful… and useful (my two rules for things I own – they have to be either.) My dad told me it was a lot of money to spend on a car. I see it differently. I see it as a certain amount of money each year for 10 years. I’m not planning to change it. It’s extremely safe and will fit me and lots of kids in. Sorted.
I know I see life differently to most people and nobody is wrong. I don’t push my way of living onto others. I just live, and by doing that, hopefully I make others feel more comfortable about doing the same. We are all free to live exactly as we please, but I would say that it’s so important to please yourself and not everybody else. Everyone will benefit from that.
“I refuse to walk carefully through life only to arrive safely at death.”
– Paulo Coelho
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