Living in Your Own SkinLately I’ve been thinking a lot about how my life has changed, and specifically how my perception of myself has changed. I don’t know if it’s aging, growing up, more experience, acceptance of who I am, or the latter as a result of the former. What I am assured is that it’s taken time for me to be comfortable in my own skin.
Much like everyone there were, and are, things I didn’t like about myself growing up. I wanted to change certain things, was insecure or more secure about one thing or another and, much like others, wanted to be like someone else or have someone else’s traits rather than what I was given.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to like the things about myself that I didn’t necessarily like before. A large amount of what goes into our self image are the thoughts and opinions we have about how other people view us and who we are. My learning to like who I am has involved a lot of examining my opinions about myself and asking if they were really true – I’ll tell you now those opinions were mostly fears parading around as truths.
When I find I’m being particularly hard on myself I now try and take a step back and examine what I’m thinking – do a gut check to make sure that I’m expressing a truth rather than a fear. And inevitably I find it’s fears that are making up my opinions not truths, and then try and recalibrate my thinking.
It’s important for everyone to recalibrate how they feel about themselves and the life situations they are in at that moment. Far too often we let what is happening in our lives, how we feel about our lives, or what we think others believe about us shape our world rather than seeing things with a clear mind and an unfiltered lens.
We shape the world we live in and when we choose to create a happy, accepting environment our lives become filled with happy, supportive, and accepting people and life experiences.