“Today, I struggle me with the heaviest of hearts. I experience me in a dark space. What do you do when you find yourself in such a place?”

Welcome to the conversation.

Jake Eagle writes:

…

Jake Eagle writes:

I enrich myself with your answers to the question, “What stops you from being your self?” When I read the answers what jumps out at me are the following concerns:

1. The need/desire to please other people
2. The idea that being one’s self is hard work
3. The notion that we don’t have the time to be our self or connect with our self.

Aren’t we crazy? We’ve actually set ourselves up so that we make it hard to be us. Hard to be who we are. But we don’t have to do this to ourselves.

There’s an easier way.

To be one’s self is to be a unique individual. The word “individual” is defined as undivided or indivisible. So all I need to do is claim all of who I am. Yet, I resist claiming all of who I am—because I don’t like all of who I am. I judge parts of myself as not okay, bad, wrong, or unacceptable—to me or to other people.

Once I make that judgment, I cut off parts of myself—and this is how I stop myself from being who I am. As soon as I cut off parts of myself, hiding my true thoughts, feelings, and needs…I’ve stopped being myself. I no longer claim my individuality.

One answer…

…the only one I’ve found that works—is the NO PRAISE/NO BLAME concept that’s at the heart of Green Psychology. When I step out of duality—the labeling of good/bad, right/wrong, etc.—I enter a new way of being. This doesn’t mean I transform everything about myself that I’m not happy with. It means that I accept myself and stop hiding.

For example:

There are times when I hear music and just want to start dancing. But, I make myself self-conscious. Instead of judging myself as bad and then hiding, I just say, “I’d love to dance but right now I’m making myself self-conscious.” That’s me at this moment. There is nothing more I need to do or say. Maybe tomorrow I’ll conduct myself in a different way, but this is how I’m doing me now. I claim myself. This is the key for me to enter the world of NO PRAISE/NO BLAME. If I do enter this worldview fully enough…I may even let go of my inhibititionsthis fully enough…I may even rip off my inhibitions and start dancing.