Losing yourself to find your true self

Sometimes we may feel we are trapped in a false life. Or that that we are trapped under the skin of someone who we are not.

Trough out our lives we all had to make some choices that were compromising ourselves. We did this to find a sense of security, or to feel that we fit in and belong. Or at times just out of trying to do everything right and well, we learned how to fulfill the demands and standards of the culture we grew in, which were not naturally our own.

With time we gotten off course. Far away from who we are.

Losing our inner comps and sensation of self, we may be living with a constant taste of frustration and an annoying pain of a seemingly impossible - to - fulfill - longing.

From this place we tend to look at our surroundings and just dream of leaving it all behind. The fantasy of leaving everything behind and finding a new life is something we can get lost in. At times it may even further us away from who we are.

There are ages in our biographies, in which this longing is knocking loudly at our doors. It asks us to find again who we truly are.

The most talked about period of such, is the classical mid-life crisis. But there are more of those periods in our lives. Periods of transition.

These times of an inner crisis are the knocks on our hearts. They remind us to breath into our honesty. They beg us to open the windows of our soul and let the light of existence illuminate the dark corners in which we hid. Those corners are usually the ones made out of convenient routines and old choices that were not true to who we are today.

What does it mean to open the door to those nocks and follow that calling?

How can we realize that longing of starting anew? What does it take to undo the inner ties and entanglement we have created?

There are many aspects to this answer. I want to start with one and offer you a surprising outlook.

To follow the call of this longing we need to learn a new way of traveling.

It is a journey that has a different direction. One of landing. 

it is traveling into ourselves and at the same time towards the freedom of perceiving the expansion that takes place with us and around us and through us.

This is a journey that demands our courage.

On this path we will be able to travel far only fueled by our honesty and our trust. Without the readiness to let go of our deceiving need to control what happens or what we should feel, we will be traveling as if backwards.

Think of yourself as holding on to ideas, and beliefs like a brittle branches of a dead tree. You hang on to it as if to dear life. Maybe you just were put there and woke up to realize that you are very distant from your own ground.

You can also look at the efforts to prove or convince your worth are chains that strangle you and make you constantly fight for air.

It does seem though as if the chains keep you held. It may give you the illusion that at the end of the chain there is that reward of love and acknowledgment.

Landing is a journey. It seems like falling at the beginning but when we relax into it through the choice and commitment, this free falling and meeting our own ground becomes the most meaningful experience. With that we can shed our known self to reveal our true self underneath. (yes, it may feel like being naked at first)

It is frightening as well as exhilarating. You can discover so much but there is no one to tell you if it is right or wrong. There is only you.

If we admit it, we do not always want to be “on our own”. We so much want to have someone lead us and take responsibility for our choices. We say we want to be free and ourselves but are you really ready to enter that realm?

What I can tell you is that when we play in this in between state, we may think it is convenient, as it soothes (or better yet, numbs) our fear of the unknown, but when we dare to feel into it, it is very uncomfortable. It keeps us dependent and the taste of bitterness constant frustration never goes away.

Walking in the realm of freedom and unknown, takes away the illusion of control. It strips us off our question if and how much we are worth.

In this risky sweet state, there is true taste of love. One that has no limited direction or a price to pay.

It constantly reveals new dimensions of creativity and inner growth that has nothing to do with a goal on its end.

So how does it go?

The thing is that when we want to be free, we are challenged with letting go of what we know about ourselves: what we can or cannot do, how people see us, how we deal with stress, money, love and whatever is important to us. It is daring to undo the ways we got attached to some people and their opinions. To undo some ideas and feelings we hold on to when we are confronted with fear. It is about being ready to move through the experience of shame when we are being simply ourselves and honest about our wishes, qualities and needs.

It does feel at times as if we give up, die or lose everything. But if we do not dare to lose ourselves (our known self) …. we can’t find our way back to ourselves. To the unknown part of ourselves, we so much yearn to uncover. 

Losing our known selves means to let go of all those inner structures that we hold on to very tightly. To start and dare and feel that there is an option to ease our clenched jaw when we are angry and hurt. That there is space for our breath when we stressed or lose our confidence. That we can move our legs when we are afraid to make a mistake. Or that our heart can open up at least a little bit, when we receive a complement or some warmth.

Then to find a moment of freedom from the known, that can redirect our path and rescale our inner compass, we need to let go of all that we know about ourselves;

Let go of the importance we give to what we know think about ourselves and the judgments we have (good and bad).

For a moment it should not matter what you achieved or did not achieve. For a moment as if to forget where you came from and what is your name or education level.

Take time to breath and intentionally repeat to yourself that it is not important.

Your name is not important, your education, where you live, who are your friends and so on. Nothing of what you think defines you is set in stone.

Feel how in each decision to let go of those chains of knowledge and judgements, you can allow your body to move and dare to open a space in your experience that is unknown.

We give so much importance and meaning to things and at times forget that we are the one choosing the meaning.

I suggest you to try and play with this idea especially with those things that seem set in stone like name, origin and so on.

If we look at all these things as the ones to determine who we are, they imprison us and mislead us from our true self.

the meaning they bring with them is not always the one we gave them but more often than not mixed with what we think they should be or even should not be.

Just by intentionally and routinely letting it all go, we can free ourselves for short moments off of these chains. We can breathe in the sweet scent of comforting unknown. We can have a virgin canvas. One on to which we can reset ourselves.

Stirring everything up, and then see what sets down. What leaves a true mark.

And then we can perceive it all a new. New as we truly are, without the clutter of old and known.

Try it.

No matter how strange it might be at the beginning.

You will see that you start and crack open that prison, letting the preciousness of your existence can slowly spill out into your life.

I have created a guided meditation for that which you can find here in my site. It is a wonderful training you can embrace daily for a week or two and then return to it from time to time to make sure the doors of the known will not close on you tightely ever again.

Losing Your Known Self to Find Your True Self

Yours

Anna

#selfacceptance #lifestyle