JUST BE YOU

The images you look at of the smiley people with the perfect life is so enticing isnt’ it? As you work your way through the pages of facebook, instagram etc. it seems as if everyone has got themselves together and living their best life as they say! And therein is the biggest lie of our time. The perfect painted picture of happiness of people in love, in a career that flourishes and with family who are so well balanced and supportive will be looked back on as the great lie of this generation.

A girl with a perfect face and a broken heart. A boy with a fighting spirit of the champion but the emotions of a child who is lost and is fighting to stop himself being revealed as sensitive or afraid. A Mother who is the heart of her family and looks so loved and respected yet hides her own worries with a tired smile. The father who looks afer those he loves but hides his fear of how he can be responsible for his family when debt has left him struggling to sleep at night.

Never has there been a time when we live in a world where the image is the most important part of our life. From the time we set foot outside each day we are selling ourselves and trying to keep the image of being happy as a badge we wear. The smiling face, the bright bleached smile, the twinkling eyes of someone healthy and happy is sent out as an example to all we meet along the way and captured in an image we share as we sit down at night watching the telly. Oh and yes..don’t forget to get a photo of you in the gym working out ! Make sure people know you are exercising daily and eating vegan or vegetarian. You are doing your bit for the world while maybe struggling to find how you can feel more like you again…

But as we come into a time of a new ‘reality’ we are being shown how fractured the image is and that the truth is we are allowed to be ourselves and not put on a show for fear of offending, or even worse for fear of rejection. What could happen if we let our guard down even now and again? We don’t have to become a whinging or whining record of regrets or worries, we just have to let ourselves loose from the restrictions of ‘happy’ and just have days were you are average.

All the expressions of success are geared to make us think we are at a loss if we are not at the top of our game as they say. What happens if the go getter with the nice car and trappings of success stops and says…I have had enough. I want to live a simple life! Will he or she lose his friends and the people he calls friends. Maybe. But that is the chance you have to take. Do you want to be friends with those who see you as successful by your material value and the fact you fit nicely into their social group or do you want to have friends who see you just as you..warts and all!

Sometimes life has a way of bringing us back down to a level of simple we didn’t know we needed and if you are feeling constantly tired, worried or even ill at ease with the way you have to keep ahead of the game with the snapchats, the photos on instagram, the happy happy ‘best life’ persona, while wanting a new way of living, its ok. It really is ok to stop and start being you. And if the ‘you’ you are searching for is so far removed from the ‘living your best life’ you, then you need only start out by surrendering to not doing something you used to worry about. Don’t make that call to someone who you feel guilty about not ringing. Don’t make that visit to meet groups of people you fear meeting. Don’t post how happy you are when you are not! From that point it can only mean change. But don’t think too much about that either!

What perhaps you do ..do lol is ..Find a place you feel most comfortable in. Even for just an hour. Do something just for you..even if it means going outside your normal routine for once. Do call a friend you love and who loves you and whom you are alway happy to meet, even if you have not seen each other for a while. A friend who loves you is only ever happy to hear you again! And please, let your guard down and let your ‘best life’ be authentic if you can start to allow it more and more.. It will become a new habit just like the old one we had!! We are retraining our hearts and minds to be less busy and more ‘being’ and if we can drop the multitude of causes to fight for from our lives, we will find ‘happy’ starts to sit in your heart and smile naturally from your face. Not every day..lol but more and more and authentically as you become ..Just You. The wonderful loving you that hides behind the ‘busy’.

Keep going! Keep it real! and believe in YOU!!

Caroline K.