3 STEPS TO START BEING TRUE TO YOU!

WHO ARE YOU?

Do you know who you are? Really know who you are? I didn’t for many, many years. I started to and then I was diagnosed with breast cancer. That was when I really began to know myself. What a blessing that was. I was given a second chance to find me. To find out who I really was and am. 

Is this something you struggle with? Who am I? What do I like to do? What do I not like to do? What is my life purpose? Do you hold your feelings in during a conflict? Do you say yes to everyone and everything…except to yourself? 

Do you want to get to know yourself? Let’s try something…Introduce yourself to yourself!

Say, “Hi (name)! I would like to introduce you to (name). She is ….. (fill in the blank)”

How did that go? Were you able to fill in the blank? If not, finish reading this blog post and go back to this exercise after doing these exercises several times and see what comes up. Don’t try too hard. Don’t use your head. Instead, use your heart. What is your heart telling you about yourself? Go back to this exercise anytime you want to check on who you are.

Let’s go over 3 easy steps you can take right now to start learning who you are, so you can be true to YOU!

1. Tune in to your feelings, emotions, thoughts, surroundings, life etc. Become self-aware of all these things. What do you feel? What are you thinking? What emotions are inside you? Are you aware of where you are, your surroundings, your heart and soul? 

2. Trust your gut and follow your heart. Think about how you feel inside before you give an answer to someone. What is your gut and your heart telling you to do. The more you sit with these questions, the easier it becomes to be intuitive of your feelings.

3. STOP pleasing others. Please yourself first. This doesn’t make you selfish. It is self-care. If you aren’t happy, how can you make anyone else happy? Have those boundaries and say NO when you feel you want and/or need to. It is difficult to say “No” in the beginning, but it really does get to be easier, makes you feel so much better and, many times is a relief.

There are 3 steps (actually 5), but who’s counting? They sound pretty easy, no? Yes, they do sound easy, maybe not so easy to put into action. It takes a commitment to do this. You have to make the time to do it. But, isn’t it worth it to find you? You only get one chance in life, why not make it the best one ever, doing You, being You? 

Take the time to sit with yourself, starting with just 5 minutes a day for a week. Then add another 5 minutes…keep adding time to just sitting in the quiet and breathing from your heart. Meditation is wonderful. It has taken me years to get to 30 minutes of just sitting and “being,” but I have made such wonderful advances in understanding myself and listening to what my body is telling me. How it feels physically, emotionally, spiritually…. Your’s will too. 

Being true to YOU and finding who you are and what you want in life makes for a happy and healthy life. The more you do things that you love to do the happier and healthier you are going to be. We need to take the time to do these kinds of self-care acts for ourselves. Nobody else can make us happy, but US. This is being true to YOU. 

When you are learning to be true to yourself, you need to get really “REAL” with yourself. Don’t lie to yourself. Don’t use your head to think. Use your heart. It is easy to think something and say, “No, that is how I feel.” But, is it really? I had to sit down and meditate quite a bit the last week because I was going to get an infusion that would help decrease the recurrence of my breast cancer. At first it sounded wonderful. A win-win situation. And, maybe it is for others, but I’m not so sure it is for me. I wasn’t sleeping, I was getting moody and agitated. This is something that I have not been doing since my diagnosis. I have felt wonderful since I found out. I was given a second chance to do things the way I wanted to. Then, I meditated and all this heaviness came up about the infusion. I cancelled my appointment. It wasn’t something I needed to do. It was something that I could do if I wanted. I still may at a later date, if it comes up feeling light for me. But just not right now. Maybe now is not the time for me. I can still get it at a later date. As soon as I cancelled the appointment, the heaviness lifted. 

Now, don’t go cancelling appointments that you need. I am NOT saying that. It is a wonderful thing. It just isn’t for me in this moment. And, it was not something I needed to do. If it was, I would have spent much more time meditating on it and talking with doctors about it. So, please keep what appointments you need to!

I’m just using this as an example. I was true to myself by not doing it. I listened to my body, to myself and stayed true to me. I became aware of the feelings my body was giving me, that heaviness, not sleeping, moodiness and agitation. So, I said NO. I did it to please myself and nobody else. I know it was best for me (not anybody else), and trusted my intuition. That is something I could not and would not have done several or even a couple years ago. It has taken a lot of sitting with myself (and the cancer) and meditating. Doing deep breathing and learning to breathe from my heart. 

So, it may sound easy and it may sound difficult. It is what you make it. At times, it can be difficult to do take these actions, but think of the outcome. It is wonderful. You can introduce yourself to YOU and know who you are! It is a wonderful feeling. 

Go out there and find yourself. Be True To YOU!