Recreating Yourself

by Skye Thomas - 

So, it’s time for a change.  You have taken that hard look in the mirror and you have decided that you are not who you want to be.  Or perhaps you are standing at a fork in the road and the path you would like to take requires you to make some changes.  Maybe you are just really bored with your life because you have been in the same old rut for so long that you could start screaming if you spend another day doing the same incredibly boring things all over again.  The reasons for change are as varied as the people making the decision to do so.  

The only thing you have to remember is that the change must come from you, not from someone else.  

It cannot be a gift to someone else; that seldom works out in the long run. We simply cannot muster enough of the continuous self-motivation needed in order to make big personal changes when we do not agree that a change is actually needed.  

Ultimately, recreating ourselves is a very personal choice and a very personal decision that others really cannot help us with.

Your wife thinks you drink too much and should quit.  Your parents think you screw off too much and need to pull better grades.  Your boss thinks you are a slacker and you need to be more productive.  If the people in your life are hammering you to change, then it may be time to take a long hard look in the mirror.  

To some extent, you have to be open to the idea that they may be right.  However, they are not you.  They cannot walk in your shoes.  Nobody can completely totally understand another person.  Only you really know what is right for you.  Only you can pick your path in life, your choice of companionship along the way, and what kind of person you will be while traveling.  

Some people are misunderstood visionary geniuses.  Others are simply rebellious or lazy.  Most of us fall somewhere in between.  You cannot let others dictate who or what you are to become.  

The choice to recreate yourself must come from within.

If you have looked deep within and you have decided that you want to change because you would be happier, then it is time to start.  

My personal moment came when I realized that I was only twenty-five and was never ever going to fall in love again and was going to be shattered and heartbroken for another fifty years or so before I would finally roll over and die.  Yes, I know that it was a very morbid thought, but that is exactly my point.  At some point you do the math asking yourself, “If I stay just like this – on this path – with this mindset – with this income level – with these people surrounding me – with this lifestyle – how will my life look in five years?  In ten?  In fifty?”  

It can be an incredibly sobering and depressing answer.  Mine was, so I made a decision to change who I was so that the next fifty years would at least be different with a chance of happiness.  You may be reading this because you too have decided that your life will be miserable if you do not make some kind of big changes.  So, now that the decision has been made, where do we start?

The first thing I would recommend is looking at your natural gifts.  

If you do not know what your gifts, talents and assets are, then you need to spend some time finding out what they are.  Take some online personality tests, ask friends and family, spend time with a therapist or figure out some other way to take an honest evaluation of yourself and take note of the good things that you bring to any situation.  

The idea is to find those core aspects of ourselves that are never really going to change very much.  For example, do you like to work alone or as part of a team?  You may be extremely introverted or extroverted.  You may be incredibly musical or you may be very mathematical.  The gifts and challenges you were born with are part of your authentic real self.  

Recreating yourself is not about denying the root of who you are.  It is about molding and shaping the other things like attitude, behavior, presentation and such.

In my situation, I looked at what kind of person I would have been if nobody had ever hurt me.  If nobody had ever been mean, critical, unfaithful, etc. who would I be today?  Who would I have been if I had been raised by ideal perfect parents in an ideal perfect family?  I imagined the “unbroken” me as someone much more confident, bubbly, and joyful.  

I imagined that I would have been one of those people who laugh aloud without worrying about snorting or making a donkey heehaw noise.  I imagined someone fabulous and fearless.  I imagined someone who did not have an inner-critic harping and nagging at them that they needed to spend more time self-censoring so as not to make any foolish mistakes and not to give anyone a reason to point and laugh at me.  

Ask yourself those same types of questions; who would you be if everything had been emotionally, physically and spiritually healthy in your life and nothing bad had ever happened to you?

Next, I asked myself, “What’s stopping me from being that unbroken version of myself now?”  It was easy to look back at everything that had caused me to NOT be that fabulous version of myself.  So then the next question was, “Okay, so they screwed you up, they raised you wrong, they cheated on you, they abandoned you, etc.  Now what?  Will you spend the rest of your life being the person they created or will you be the person you were really meant to be?”  

That was the biggest turning point for me.  That is the moment when I decided to take “me” back from “them” and to become the person I should have been if nothing bad had ever happened.  You can do this too.  “Who would you be if nobody ever screwed you over?  

Will you allow them to stay in charge of who you are or will you take control of your own personality and decide for yourself who and what you are?”

At first, I had to fake it and pretend to be “the real me”, but eventually over time, I came to realize that it was actually much easier to be this “new” me instead of that “old broken” version of me.  

I chose careers that matched my natural likes and dislikes, my natural gifts and talents, etc.  I chose partners who liked me when I was not pretending to be some perfect woman for them.  I dumped people from my life that did not like the “real” uncensored version of me.  I am not saying I ran around burping, farting, and being an annoying brat.  I am saying that I did not beat myself up anymore over every tiny little thing anymore.  

I learned to quiet my inner-critic and stop letting old fears and doubts rule my every decision.  “What if they don’t like me?  What if I screw up?  What if I fail?  What if they are right and I’m just a loser?”  I stopped letting those questions hold me back.  Who cares what “they” say?!  

You too can give yourself permission to be the “real” you, the “unbroken” you.   

Now a word of warning: Sometimes the people who knew us before we made all of the personal changes refuse to see us as new and improved.  This is especially true of family members.  They knew you when you were a whiny kid.  They knew you when you went through that really bad divorce and turned into a real nutcase.  

Sometimes they have their own ugly issues to work out and are bitter that you are role modeling positive changes.  It is easier said than done but believe me when I say this – It is none of your business what they think of you.  

You did not change yourself so that they would like you better.  You changed so that you would like you better.  Hold your head up high and laugh aloud with confidence and joy.  Do not allow anyone to take your new life away from you.

tomorrowsedge.net

Hidden Souls

by Skye Thomas -

I suppose it’s the nature of the thing that you would feel that you are alone and that nobody else is going through what you are going through. You have worked on yourself, healing, changing, growing, and becoming more enlightened as to the way the game of life is played.

The result is that you really don’t feel like playing anymore. No, you aren’t suicidal but rather you just want to be left alone. You see the world as superficial and fake. You see the people you love self-destructing right before your very eyes and you have tried to help them only to find that your help is not wanted.

You have even wrestled with that until you understand that you cannot force others to accept your enlightenment and your wisdom. You cannot force others to accept your views of life, of peace, of balance, of harmony, of personal reflection and self-accountability. Eventually, like a hermit, you go off to live your simple perfectly balanced beautiful little life alone.

This is not the same as the lost souls who do not know who they are or where they are in life. 

This is about those souls who know exactly who they are, where they are in life, and have a pretty good idea of where they are heading and what it will look like when they get there.

These people have ambition, direction, drive and often some form of a spiritual calling, a higher ideal, or a humanitarian cause that motivates them to give of themselves to humanity in ways that others cannot understand.

These souls hear a small voice whispering to them to go public with their peaceful harmonious ways. But going public is noisy, harsh, rude, prejudiced and often dangerous for the gentle calm souls. So they hide.

Anger and pain controls a lot of people. It’s a sad fact. We all know someone who still allows their childhood wounds to dictate and control their every decision. 

We all know of people who are afraid to really open up and love someone else for fear of being rejected and hurt again. Anger is a passionate motivator. People who are really ticked off are seldom docile and quiet about it. Take an angry mob and see how long you can keep them in a peaceful calm quiet logical state.

Anger is overwhelming and powerful. It controls and threatens whatever looks like the source of that rage, fear or pain.

Now look at love and inner peace. 

By nature, love is not controlling or dominating. It is a light that shines and warms, but it does not push and shove.

Take a crowd of people who are all in a loving openhearted peaceful state, like a congregation after listening to a beautiful uplifting sermon or an audience who has just watched a musician play something amazingly spellbinding that touches their deepest heart. For just a moment, the crowd sits awash in the joyful calm not wanting to break the sacred silence.

The hidden souls are trying to live their lives like that congregation and the truth is, it is hard to hold onto our warm cozy feelings while being cut off in traffic, screamed at by irate customers and listening to a critic say that we aren’t very good at whatever gift we are trying to offer the world.

It’s so much easier for the musician to play alone in his room, the writer journals just for themselves, the artist hides their work away and the heart does not reach out to new people anymore.

These people hide their gentle souls because they want to remain gentle in a world that is harsh and often cruel.

Then that small voice of spirit calls out from the inner sanctuary of our minds telling us we must come forward and share our gifts.

“The world needs your gift as much as you need to share it.” 

Terrified, we wrestle with that guiding voice telling it to leave us alone in our hermit’s nest. It is in that struggle to maintain our loving hearts while confronted with other people’s hatred that we find just how sacred the love in our hearts is.

You were taught how to hold an inner light while held safely away from the chaos and ugliness of the “real world.” You were spiritually healed, taught and enlightened in your safe sanctuary, but that is just a false world designed for the beginner to learn.

Once you have mastered your own heart and mind and have learned how to be a truly beautifully balanced loving soul, then you will be kicked out of the nest and told to go spread that light. 

Yes, you are different from what appears to be the norm. You won’t know how many others are out there just like you until you come out of your hiding spot and begin to interact on a deep heartfelt level with all of humanity.

You must step into the darkness or nobody will know that you are a shining light. 

Yes, I know you are content to simply light up your safe secret little corner of the world. Yes, I know that you no longer have an ego attachment that needs for the world to see you as shining and glorious. You would be perfectly content hiding away in your sanctuary, working, singing, laughing and loving just the safest people that you have met.

However, it’s not for you that you must shine your light into the darkness. It’s for those lost souls who are frightened, broken and alone. 

It is so seldom that a Gandhi or a Mother Theresa appears on the scene, that the lost souls do not believe that unconditional love really exists on a day-to-day level.

You do not build lighthouses in safe sunny places. You put them on the edge of the shore where the storms are. You are a beacon of light in the storm of humanity. Deal with it and get to work doing what you were trained to do.

tomorrowsedge.net