I love helping people find who they are and what makes them happy. It’s not an easy thing to do, people have to make the choice to change or stay the same. I thought I was the only one who felt silly about not knowing what made me happy. I had no idea how many people don’t know how to do this.
What is it that makes you who you are? How do you find authenticity? It’s a process. You find it by paying attention to yourself. Ask yourself repeatedly – why am I doing this? Does this make me happy? – until it becomes a habit.
Question your daily activities and drives. You’ll be able to characterize them as either ego driven or heart driven. This is where you’ll find your answers.
I see a lot of people continuously jumping from idea to idea, business to business, activity to activity. For some people that may make them happy or it may be just more noise they’ve added to their lives, more distractions from who they really are. Eventually the façade will crack and life will try to force you to head in a more authentic direction.
**DISCLAIMER** Since I can only speak from my perspective I’ll give you examples from my own life of things I had to let go. There’s no judgment in these examples so please take them for what they are, my path doesn’t have to be yours.
Example 1: Wine & Coffee
I know this is blasphemy for many but for the most part, I hate wine and any coffee product. As a bonafide supertaster (yes, that exists) wine usually tastes like varying forms of chemical vomit. And for my taste buds, coffee is something straight out of hell – although I do like the smell of fresh, regular coffee. Discovering I didn’t fit in with the wine Wednesday (or everyday) girls or the Starbucks crowd was tough for me. The things people bond over can be silly but I got over it and order white tea or my beloved whiskey drink instead. Being different from the crowd actually makes you more interesting so if you secretly hate pizza or something else that’s a typical crowd pleaser don’t feel badly about it.
Example 2: Yoga & work out or Enlightenment trends
There’s this trend where people feel better about themselves doing what everyone else is doing. I thought I would love yoga and I participated in varying forms for several years before it dawned on me it wasn’t for me. While the stretching and exercise part of it felt good there was an element of superiority to the classes and participants that didn’t feel right for me and eventually it cancelled out the feel good physical part. I realized my favorite way to exercise and feel a sense of peace was walking or hiking in nature. If a trend selling peace feels self-important then is it really enlightening? I realized what I was seeking wasn’t another exercise or stretching routine it was peace, it was becoming more enlightened. So for me, the answer was no.
Example 3: Religion
My Christianity was shaken to the core when I lost my first baby on Christmas (I have a blog about this here) and by the time I was divorced there was a nail in the coffin of my religious beliefs. I was reeling. If you’ve lost your religion you know it can rock the entire foundation of your life. I searched for several years to find a new religion that would fill the void and make me feel better. Everyone has to belong to a religion, right? Even in the religions I experienced they seemed to be based on guilt and societal controls. There came a point when I decided to follow freedom and love and forgive myself for not fitting into a specific religious group.
Notice a common factor here? I started discovering I was having adverse reactions to major marketing trends promising to make life better or make you feel (falsely) more important than others. From my observations, places like Starbucks or the Apple store seemed to produce few smiles and lines of meandering zombies.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some trends and brands I’m truly drawn to and even grateful for. Like hot tea becoming popular. I can drink white tea allllll daaayyyyy loooonngg. The ritual of making it and peace I feel while drinking it are simply part of who I am so I’m all for it. What are some things you feel this way about?
There are many things/habits/preferences I assessed and decided to keep because they felt like me. These things included the organic and local food “trend”, spray tans (more so now than ever – hiding bug bites and scratches makes me feel better, even if I look like tree bark), and all sorts of things from good for me to not-so-great for me. It’s an ongoing process and one I’ve started to enjoy.
Over time I’ve realized whatever people are currently flocking to – the “it” thing or even societal norms – are something I need to consciously assess their place in my life or out of it. Just because society dictates certain behaviors doesn’t mean they’re more important than the individual’s preferences. If you’re not fond of a trend or belief it’s more than OK, it’s GREAT because it’s these preferences that help put you on the path to finding who you are as an individual in a society full of clichés and narcissists. If a trend actually ADDS to your life then that’s fantastic, you’re one step closer to figuring yourself out.
Discovering who you are should be a fun process. The more you ask yourself if something actually adds to your happiness you’ll start to eliminate things that cause stress or don’t actually fulfill you. This includes habits, trends, products as well as relationships and even belief systems. The more you eliminate the outdated elements in your life the freer you’ll be and the more room you’ll have to fill your life with those people and things that do add positively to your life. The point is to not let anyone else dictate who you are. A product, beverage or belief doesn’t make you any more or less sophisticated and intelligent than anyone else.
I’d love to hear from anyone who’s doing this process and what you’ve discovered you truly love and what you’ve discarded.
xo
