New Year and New you. Actually New Year, Real you! Life never feels so good than when we feel free to be ourselves. However, beware as reconnecting with our True self is not a long and quiet river. Have a look at those 10 unexpected facts that will surprise you!
1) It feels like waking up with a hangover
As you wake up from a life which was not yours. But that is before the euphoria to live the life you always wanted to have and be who you wanted to be. As you learn more about yourself, you start making some changes in your life, aspiring to move closer to your true self. And you start realising that the life that you are currently living may be the consequences of choices made to please other people before yourself. You start auditing and questioning everything in your existence. Do your clothes really reflect your personality? Are you an Ikea fan or do you trust your creativity, style and taste? Where did you get that belief system that held you back for years?
2) It feels awkward
To be free. You detach yourself from the expectations of the Society which are not your reality nor your Life plan. And you reconnect with yourself and your true purpose. You change the "We" by "I" and start speaking your Truth without hiding behind any dogma or traditions. You are seen as a rebel because you naturally start questioning things that people don’t dare or bother questioning. You start getting used to challenges and debates when you used to spend your life being quiet. People will not necessarily love you more but they will respect you for standing up for your truth. We don’t notice when people follow the flock but we do notice the lone wolf who has been bold enough to step aside. If you used to be seen as a sheep, you will be now seen as the outsider who never fails to impress.
3) You become divisive
By embracing your own difference and individuality, you become more tolerant of differences in others too. You develop compassion and empathy for those people who also claim the right to be different, to be themselves and accepted by the Society. Rather than maintaining the status quo, you will find yourself on the other side of the fence, supporting the right to diversity in the World. You celebrate unity and oneness in diversity (all different, all unique but all human and all connected) rather than pushing all diversity into the same box to follow one unique road and one narrow vision.
4) You follow the road less travelled
Where your compass will be your values, your truth and your intuition. There is just one road for your true self. Because you are unique, no one has been there before and no one will follow you either. You will be alone but you will not feel lonely. You will not be a "follower", a "liker" or an "influenced" anymore but a Leader. You march to the beat of your own drum and you will never be bored of yourself anymore.
5) You go back to the student seat
As you enroll for a life long journey of learning about yourself. This process starts with rewiring your mind and restarting the process of learning about yourself and about life. The point of a self discovery journey? Meeting and connecting with your Higher Self.
There are exams along the way, every time when life throws at you the same challenges, the same tests until you know how to overcome them and pass. As you grow, more difficult tests will come. Like in video games, "every level has a devil!"
6) You lose friends
To make space for better ones. As you are more yourself and less a people-pleaser / Follower / Influenced, you will start losing people who cannot influence and take advantage of you anymore. You will lose the ones who are in conflict with your core values and your real personality, and the others who are in a different personal journey. You will have to let some people go to let more people into your life.
When you are Authentic, you attract and are able to connect with more loyal friends who like you the way you are (Yes there are plenty of them!) and you develop stronger, deeper and more meaningful relationships with them. Your vibes attract your tribe. Be authentic and you will find new genuine and like-minded friends to share your journey with.
7) You can lose yourself.
If you try to be too original. When you are not authentic, you lose yourself trying to fit in a costume which feels uncomfortable and alien. You are aware that there is something that doesn’t feel right, that you have to make too much effort to hide who you really are. When you are your true self, you just come as you are, knowing that you are good enough and embracing your singularity. Now people can start getting wild and want to be extremely different. Yes, not extremely themselves but extremely different. And this is when you are back making effort to be someone that you are not. Making too much effort to pretend to be original is another way to lose yourself. Being original doesn’t mean being different at all cost. There is nothing wrong in being like everyone else sometimes.
8) It gives you more responsibility to speak out
As you become a Leader. First the leader of your own life and so another leader in this world. You may share values and ideas with friends. Very close point of view too. But because we are all different with different personalities and different backgrounds, we all arrive with different perspectives. For 1 problem discussed with 10 other authentic people, we may reach 10 different solutions or variations. Could you imagine if at the planet scale thousand of authentic people were sharing their views to fight climate change or other global issues? We could hit thousands of way to solve issues without having to wait for governments, scientists, bankers or Technology to save a problem create by humans and which should be solved by humans together. We all have some kind of idea as to how best we can improve our life in this planet. All it takes is to reconnect with our inner wisdom / intuition… And to speak out. Technology brought us Internet and Social media to make our voice heard. We are all leaders, it’s all our duty to speak out.
9) There is no way back
But the upside in front of you is limitless. When you find out who you really are and decide to embrace your identity, to be more authentic, you can’t go back to the old routine, empty relationships… all the mediocre things that you got because you have supressed yourself.
Being authentic means that you are true to your values. Can you go back to this old job which pays quite well and give you some prestige but go against your deepest values or your life purpose? Can you stay in relationship with that person who looks good on the paper (tick all the boxes and your Mom loves your partner) but with whom you have no real connection? Can you keep living the same life when some aspect of this life doesn’t seem to belong to you and sounds like a lie? What your Soul will be shouting at you at night?
Well, actually you can stay there and keep living the same life. But because you got this newfound awareness that something sounds wrong in your life, the countdown has started until this situation will be not bearable any more. Being original may close some old doors but they will definitely bring new possibility toward True happiness. Sometimes we have to lose something precious in order to gain something priceless.
10) You find out that you are your worst enemy
But you are also your best friend and your own best coach. When you start this journey of rediscovery of yourself, the most powerful and influential voice which will challenge you is your own internal voice. Guess what, while you can ignore a phone call from someone or skip a meeting with an annoying friend, you can’t really dissociate this voice with yourself. You are here for yourself 24 / 7 and everywhere. What you can do is turn this foe into a friend. Maybe start some mindfulness exercises and meditation and start detecting your real inner voice from the voice of fear, self-doubt, sabotage and low self-esteem. Keep in mind that your intuition and your inner voice will not necessarily tell you positive things all the time. A friend is not a yes-man (or yes-woman).
But the journey is rewarding.