“She is unapologetically herself” is so appealing to me. Hearing it has me thinking about the image we have of ourselves and how it drives our actions, our thoughts, our beliefs. It is all tied to our being caught up in other people’s opinions of us. The fact is that we are not who we think we are, we are who we think other people think we are. You may have to read that again to wrap your head around it, I know I did.
We can never get into another person’s head and see what they see, so the projection we have of ourselves is filtered through our own eyes, our own experiences, our own perception. I am always surprised when I hear myself being described by someone, positively and negatively. It’s much easier to say that you don’t care what other people think than it is to get there, I am there in theory but in real life I’m not. I get tested time and time again. A few years ago I had an exiting employee tell me I was selfish and greedy because I did not let them work overtime. No matter how I attempted to explain to him the facts about running a healthy business with over 80 employees, I could not change his views. Why did his opinion of me strike a nerve? I know that what other people think of me is none of my business. I know that his opinion is based on his own world view and life experiences. I know that I operate from abundance, yet it still hurt. My image of myself and who I really am at my core is love and generosity and giving. I work and practice and write and read and talk and dream and pray and live this.
But selfish and greedy. That was his view of me. This interaction caused me to turn my awareness inward and to look deeply into myself, and to see that there absolutely have been times in my life where I have acted selfishly. Maybe this is why it hit a nerve. I needed to look at that part of me that has sometimes run the show, the selfish, scared, victim part that can justify anything, who needed to be stay in retirement.
There will always be people that don’t agree with the way you parent, or drive, or your political views, or how you run your business, or spend your money, or live your life. We are so caught up in ensuring that we don’t stray from the image we have of ourselves as a “good father, good husband, good man” that it can cause us agony when we feel the polarization that is caused with people when you are being true to who you really are.
We are dealing with this right now, having had to make a so very hard decision that we believe is the right decision. Although we are strong and firm in our belief that we are doing the most loving thing, albeit the most difficult thing for this person by letting them fall down and hit bottom, the harder part for our hearts has been, even now, with our increased awareness of ourselves, the opinions of other people. Specifically people that are close to us and as a result of relationship have more ability to touch the thorns that are still deep in our hearts.
So we come back to being unapologetically ourselves. To being consciously aware of our actions, and to remember that you can’t expect everyone to agree with you or approve of you or like you or think you are great. To work to detach yourself from the good opinions just as much as the harsh ones and to become more self aware, and to always act with love.