Self=You (Part Two)
If you have managed to read this far, in this blog. The work can begin. The SELF= YOU If you are meeting the SELF= you for the first time, will need to be nurtured, fed and brought up to fruition.
In order to nurture the SELF = YOU, you will have to find SELF = YOU often. Remember the breathing exercise? You will need to get quite often. It is an opportunity to get to know SELF = YOU. Like seeing your baby for the first time, or bringing home a new pet, you spend as much time as you can with your baby or new pet as possible. You care for this new SELF = YOU. Tell me what this SELF=YOU without lables, feels like? Depending on how often and how comfortable you feel getting to know SELF = YOU. Your SELF=YOU turns into toddler, like a toddler, they can amuse themselves while you watch.
What does that mean for you? It means that you may not have to spend as much time getting quiet for the SELF=YOU to emerge. You will begin to feel comfortable with SELF=YOU in your own space with no labels attached.
The child stage of SELF = YOU, has your SELF=YOU walking along side you. SELF=YOU is no longer at the place you go to in your quite time, you don’t have to conjure up SELF=YOU in your ‘me time’ away from the hassle and bustle of a day. You will become aware that SELF=YOU is with you. A little spooky I know, stay with me....Once you understand that the SELF=YOU is with you all the time, your SELF=YOU moves unto the teenage stage. Rebellion or what!!! The SELF=YOU not only walks with you, but decides what it won’t do from what it will do. SELF=YOU gets it’s VOICE. This SELF=YOU that you have spent time nurturing, feeding , taking out for walks now has a say. SELF=YOU will begin to question certain aspects of your life, there will be rules, there will be things people can and can no longer do to or ask you to do. The teenager SELF=YOU won’t allow it. At this stage, certain people will still be getting away with behaviours towards you that you do not like, but as SELF=YOU isn’t grown. It’s hard to dis allow it. Here you are still allowing some people in your life to dis-respect you, treat you badly and even use you. The ‘bad’ behaviour you allow is easy, because you are not treating yourself or SELF=YOU with as much respect as it needs, it’s only a teenager after all, it is not a grown adult. I say that with tongue in cheek. Remember me telling you how badly I would treat my body, running from one job to the next, allowing managers and colleagues to treat me terribly, in the name of trying to follow a career? Remember that one manager I had, who treated me like a five year old? My SELF=YOU was a teenager then. At this stage you are aware that certain behaviours towards you is not right, but you appear powerless to do anything about them. You tend not to rock the boat at this stage, leaving things as they are, hoping things will get better. Teenage self esteem is easily dampen, so you bow your head and walk on. There is no whistle blower in you, if it an’t right, someone else will notice. This may be what you think, but deep down inside, you are not happy. You are not happy with the way you are being treated. You are not happy with what you see going on in your personal life as well as your work life. The teenage SELF=YOU doesn’t miss a trick, they are aware of most things. It becomes a `don’t feel quiet right’ thing with you now, you begin to sense when things are not the way they should be or a little `off’ . It’s that quieting yourself and going within, that’s done it. Friends, colleagues and family members will begin to see a change in you, as you begin to voice your opinion on certain things, you are changing, you are beginning to value SELF=YOU more. Your self worth has grown up, just a tad. The more you allow your new teenage SELF=YOU to emerge the more people around you will change. Have you heard the saying `you can’t change people, you have to change you’? Look around you, people teach you how to treat them. If you have a friend who, although s/he is an adult, acts like a child, you will find that someone in the group (if it’s not you) acts like the guardian for that person? Or you’ll have someone who decides where you are all going for the night out, s/he arranges this or that, you all just go along with it, following behind like little ducklings. That person taught you that they are the boss, and the child-friend taught you that you all need to look after him/her.
Back to the teenage SELF=YOU People around you will accommodate the changing you. Why? Because we teach people how to treat us. Your teenage SELF=YOU will begin to contemplate life, you will begin to read.....my blogs, you start realising that there has got to be more to life than what you are doing. You may begin to withdraw from people who try to pull you back to your old ways. For me that was work like a dog and say nothing of the way I and others were being treated. I also use to give my ALL , sometimes leaving myself with little or none. That could be time, money or energy. I use to put up with things that today, those people who use to take from me, wouldn’t dare ask, and no, it doesn’t always come with age!
As you grow your SELF=YOU becomes an adult. Here you merge into your SELF=YOU and stand for something. Here you have taught people how to treat you, you no longer worry about rocking the boat, if you are anything like me, you’ve rocked the boat and tipped it upside down. You will begin to take a chance in life, seeing if the grass is greener on the other side.
No longer will you put up and shut up. You give SELF=YOU It’s own price tag. [NO CRAP HERE] It does not matter what age you arrive here, you will begin to live your life on your terms, and all who are with you will stay. All those who are not will go. This may cause you to shed a tear, but you won’t be grabbing them back. If you did, you wouldn’t be able to live with your new adult SELF=YOU as it would be incongruent to how you live your life now.
Please bear in mind, this includes everybody in your life. Your children, as always will try and push boundaries but, as you now know where the line starts and ends. Your new SELF=YOU will not stand for it, and will take steps to correct their behaviour.
The Adult SELF=YOU knows and feels when something is not right in any environment you enter, this SELF=YOU will no longer stand for situations that disrupt your equilibrium, if it don’t feel right you will try to change the situation or leave. It’s as simple as that. Here’s an example. You are in a meeting, what the speaker is saying goes against what you believe is right, appropriate or relevant. Good manners may permit you to remain until the end, if it does not, your adult SELF=YOU will leave. You may also follow that up with letting the relevant person in charge of the event, know that you did not agree with what had been said. Your adult SELF=YOU will not allow you to sit down and shut up. This adult SELF=YOU has no time for lightly treading. At this stage you are in pursuit of your passion, if you have not already found it. You then shift, maneuver your life, some of which will come kicking and screaming to where you are able to follow your passion. You at last realise that a SELF=YOU that follows their passion is a calmer, nicer SELF=YOU. A SELF=YOU that makes time for the important people in their lives. There is no more, working late at the office or over the weekend to get the bosses proposal done. If it cannot be done within the working hours you set, or the allocated time , the work has to wait or be given to someone else. This Adult SELF=YOU aims to live a life in service to others. Remember your passion is always some thing you do for others. This adult SELF=YOU lives life on your terms.
Right, with that said, where are you on this journey? Have you acknowledged or agreed that consciousness + Body = Self and that you protray different selves depending on your environment. We counted at least 7 in one day, from Morning SELF to relaxing SELF. We noted that some labels will stay with us for a life time, Just left on the kitchen table for a night out while you be a different SELF=YOU. I asked you to be still how was it for you?
Can you bear to be still for ten minutes? Dropping off all the labels you , your family, your friends and society has attached to you?
Perhaps you can sit for ten minutes allowing only a few labels to be dropped. Let me know which ones you can easily let go of. It will tell you something about yourself.
Look over your life, have you just lived it as somebodies something? (Daughter, Son, Parent or Friend) Does your SELF=YOU get a look in? or is it buried underneath all the labels assigned to it? Deep I Know.
In this blog, you got to work seeking out the newborn SELF=YOU, toddler SELF=YOU when you got to the teenager SELF=YOU you began to speak. You spoke about what you will do, and what you won’t do, you felt when things were wrong, but was powerless to do anything about it. People began to change around you as you changed. They had no choice but to change. Then you met the adult SELF=YOU. This SELF=YOU is all you want to be. Setting boundaries in all aspects of your life. Living life on you terms, craving out your own space in your household, and letting all around you know the new YOU that you intend to be. Here you began to seek out and follow your passion. Living life with purpose.
Where are you along this journey, take heart that you have at least started to realised your full potential and that you are heading in the right direction.
I send you Love and wish that you live your life holistically.
