Answering The Question: When Do I Feel Like Myself?
What does it mean to be authentically yourself? My journey answering that question this week.
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Happy Friday y’all! Another week in the books. Kudos on making it this far, and I hope you have some fun plans for the weekend ahead.
As a reminder, here’s the question we tried to explore this week:
When do you feel completely like yourself?
Answering the Question
I don’t often quote myself, but when I sent out our prompt I wrote this to y’all:
I tried to give you a question that was a bit more inward-looking and perhaps a bit less…uncomfortable…this week.
Let me come out and say it: I was incredibly wrong.
Anytime I sat down to reflect on this question I saw the blank page looking back at me for much longer than I expected. Was that your experience, too?
I spent a bit of time trying to turn over why this was so difficult for me to parse, and ultimately decided that if I was unable to answer these questions, it had to be one of two things. Either I had no idea who my authentic self was, or I was afraid to admit it. I was either disconnected, or in fear. Neither of those are places in which I aspire to live, so I had to press on and dig.
Taking my own advice, I tried to wrap my head around the subject by using some of the in-road questions I listed in the prompt post. Maybe I’m getting good at this because these actually gave me a really accessible way to start thinking about the topic.
The starting point I used was asking myself when I feel most like myself, a question I could answer quite quickly. It’s the mornings. It’s why I don’t mind waking up before the sun, alarm clocks, or morning meetings. The mornings are when I’m at my best…physically, spiritually, mentally. This is when I’m me.
From there, the rest of the picture began to come together, and before I knew it I sketched out exactly when I feel like myself, and it looked a lot like my Sunday mornings:
Early hours of solitude (with the dog, of course)
A hot cup of coffee (who am I kidding, several)
Catching up on the news, with a newspaper (ideally)
Some time spent journaling and reflecting
Phone calls with friends
Marked by stillness and quiet
Gosh, doesn’t that sound great? Okay, maybe not to you. But to me, it’s the dream and I want to live it.
So my goal now is to figure out how to incorporate more of these moments into my everyday life, a practice I’ll be referring to as building ritual. As tough as it is for me to admit, and why I think I found this prompt difficult, I’m a creature of habit who thrives in low-stimulation environments, things that are device-free, 1:1, and quiet. In places with high noise pollution and lots of activity I tend to feel detached from my body, unable to think deeply or connect with my surroundings. As much as I want to be that person, I have to accept that I’m not. And that’s no great loss! No, in fact, it’s a blessing, because when I know and accept who I am and the environments in which I thrive, I can work to place myself in those as often as I can.
I hope you can do the same.
Something to Think About
No music this week, but I do want to leave you with a fabulous opportunity to be a first-time participant in a special program being put on by my friends at A Call to Men. The organization, which works to transform society by promoting healthy, respectful manhood and offering trainings and educational resources for companies, government agencies, schools, and community groups, has schedule their first-ever series of in-person Leadership Academies this year.
Having done their Virtual Training Institute for Gender and Racial Justice in the past, I cannot recommend enough the programming from this organization. The tools that session equipped me with continue to inform how I show up for my community. In fact, as I write this, I have a sheet of paper not far from me on my desk with a listing of the characteristics of white supremacist work culture, something I keep nearby as a reminder to be intentional about the teams I am building, and to check me on my own actions.
Consider signing up today!
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That’s all for me, and for today. Have a restful and restorative weekend. See you on Sunday for the next question.
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