Living your REAL life

Image Credit ~ keepcalm-o-matic

“When you stop living your life based on what others think of you real life begins. At that moment, you will finally see the door of self acceptance opened.” ~ Shannon L. Alder

There are a a lot of expectations in this world.  Virtually everywhere you go you will find some one...or a group of someones who will be ready to tell you how you are supposed to live your life.  For many of us that starts when we are growing up.  Some with the best of intentions, others not so much, our parents, teachers, friends, community, the media and a host of others express their beliefs regarding who we should be.  In our youth, this is done to give us the skills we need to be successful as adults.  However, think of it this way, if we spend our entire developmental years making decisions based on how it will be viewed by the respected adults around us, at what point do we learn to make decisions and live our life based on what we think of ourselves?

This is not something that is taught to us when we reach adulthood.  I don't remember getting a card that said , "Congratulations, you are an adult...stop worrying about what others think of you and focus of your acceptance of yourself!"  Some of us make that switch naturally, or by chance, or good fortune.  Others never cross that threshold, they move into adulthood concerned...some times hyper-concerned about the opinions others view of them.  And there are people who are some mixture of the two.  You can think of it as a continuum  and we all fall somewhere on it.

I never realized (as I suspect is the case with many of us who never crossed the threshold) that I was living my life based on how others viewed me.  I have always thought that my ability to change who I am to "fit-in" to any particular situation was a useful skill.  As I travel this new journey, I realize that my habitual tendency to "fit-in" was preventing my from accessing who I truly am.

The hardest part of my journey so far is that I have to stop "fitting-in."  I have to turn my gaze with-in, find out who I am (both the strengths and weaknesses) and learn to be that person.  I am so accustomed to "fitting-in" that it takes a great deal of thought and deliberate work to stop "fitting in."  My biggest fear right now is that once I start  accessing the power of self-acceptance and I stop just "fitting-in" those closest to me will see this as my personality "changing" and will not know how to handle my awakening.  

I know that being able to Cheerfully Accept who I am will help me on my journey from "fitting-in" to being true myself.  I look forward to this journey.