My Struggles with Connecting to the REAL Me
Disconnected – by Timmy Brister
Hey, it’s been awhile.
I’ll be honest and tell you that it’s more than me not having the motivation to write on here, it’s that I haven’t really had the desire. As I’ve been experiencing a lot of emotional release, shifts of perception, and self discovery, I’ve found that a lot of the motivations I’ve had that kept me on a routine have been shifting, which in turn has taken away my desire to do some of the things I was used to doing.
Not only had I not been writing on here, but my gym attendance has been quite erratic as well, and my commitment to go to yoga at least once a week has completely fallen by the wayside.
As I’ve gotten more grounded, the irony is that I lost a lot of the connection to the things I used to do and have found myself asking, “What’s the use?”
It seems to me that as a result of me gradually developing an authentic connection to my core self, a lot of the things I did that I took for granted weren’t coming from an authentic place. They were coming from a false, wounded sense of self, and through me healing and growing, as the false self gets exposed and recedes into the background, so do the behaviours that were connected with it.
Thus, I assume that as I continue to develop a deeper and stronger connection with my true self, I’ll begin to discover new, more “authentic” desires to not only do the things I did in the past, but also to do new things I never thought of doing before or wasn’t able to do because I couldn’t connect to the desire to do them.
Thinking about this often makes me wonder how much of what we do comes from an authentic place of who we REALLY are, and how much of it comes from a false sense of self that’s derived from our fears, our insecurities, our wounds and pain, and also our false perceptions.
How would what we do change if we acted from who we really are rather than who we think we are?
When I reflect upon this, I feel a lot less guilty for my “slacking off.” I realize that I am shifting in such a way that is forcing me to become more “real” with whatever I choose to do, and those activities that I previously engaged in, even if they’re “positive,” will fall off if they don’t emanate from my authentic, core self that’s starting to bubble forth.
This brings to mind the struggle I’ve dealt with for years and prayed, and prayed about for a resolution – a lack of connection to my core self.
It is often said that in the way that if we don’t like someone, it’s because the qualities we can’t stand about that person remind us about the very things we can’t stand about ourselves, on the flip side, it’s also true that the qualities we admire in others are often qualities we, ourselves, possess but are not aware of.
A few days ago, I was looking at the work of this photographer that I had worked with last year whose work I love because it totally inspires me to want to express myself fully and authentically in life every time I look at it, and I recalled when first meeting him how inspired I was by his creative energy. Just like his work, being around him made me just want to fully let go and go for it in my life.
The inspiration I experienced from being around him made me look inward and be inspired by my own self. It made me want to go out there and take the world by its throat and go and create something magnificent that’s unique to me.
I have another friend who evokes those same feelings in me, and as such, I like being around him. I also tend to watch YouTube videos of certain people for similar reasons.
The problem with all this is that while it’s great to be around people who inspire you as opposed to being around those negative, miserable people who drain your energy, my seeking of outside inspiration has also been due to the fact that I still lack that connection within myself that would enable me to not have to seek so much outside inspiration from others.
I know I have within me the drive and passion to build an empire with my own unique signature. How? Because I admire that same quality in others who have done so in the past. The struggle has been that while knowing I have these qualities, I haven’t been able to connect to them within me consistently enough for me to maintain some type of clarity as to why I’m doing what I’m doing. I know that you’re not always going to “feel” like doing something, but with me, because I had this poor connection to my authentic self, I always felt I lacked a consistent foundation that help see me through those periods when he wasn’t “feeling it.”
Being unable to connect consistently to my core self has blocked me from connecting from that big enough “why” within that gives a person the clarity to know deep within why he’s doing what he’s doing, through thick and thin. It also has caused me to rely on others as my sole source of inspiration, rather than me being able to get at least some of my inspiration from within.
At this point of my journey, beyond just knowing, I FEEL why it’s so important that I connect to my authentic self. I see it as the root to a lot of my problems, and my work is to continue to clear out all the emotional blockages that block me from connecting to ME.
This is The Viable Alternative.
Hope this helps,
Ike Love
