The Real Me

It’s honestly jarring to think of the behind the scenes lives of people. They look one way on the outside, and often it’s not until the people are out of our lives that we really know who they are.

It’s tragic, really.

It’s not that the inspired, soulful version isn’t the real me. It is. It is my essence. Each of our essences are pure, whole, and inspiring. It’s the nature of the soul.

It’s not that that’s not me. It is.

I’m just plagued by the thought that my upbeat, motivating messages give out the impression that I don’t have struggles—a sort of photoshopped look. And let’s face it, photoshop can lead not only to body dysmorphia, but some really painful social comparison.

So, while honoring my biographical boundaries (yay DBT!), here’s a little more about the raw footage from my life:

I have tendencies toward anxiety. It’s especially kicked up when I don’t sleep well and/or am going through periods of stress. I have learned to manage it, but it’s still there, lurking, ready to come out!

I have struggled with low self-esteem, since I was five-years-old. I was an extremely fun and vivacious child and then around kindergarten time, got pretty shy and less self-assured. Since then, I’ve been a mix of each of those things, an amorphous amalgamation of social butterfly with butterflies in my stomach!

Although I tend to feel inferior to others and spend way too much time in the degrading pastime of social comparison, I also have a very strong sense of who I am. I don’t much succumb to peer pressure, and I carry myself with confidence and poise.

Does being an inherent contradiction make me fiction?

But, I’m real!

I just pinched myself and it hurt.

Another thing that DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) taught me was dialectics. Ah, it’s in the name!

A dialectic is when two seemingly contradictory things are both true.

When I was first introduced to this concept, I let out a sigh of relief. And every time I think about it, I feel that same relief.

It’s so freeing to hold a space for contradiction. And just let things be. Not try to make them anything other than what they are.

Dialectics give me permission to be human. They also afford me with a lens through which I can process my life experiences—allowing space for the tragedies and the triumphs, the times of clarity and the messiness

For more information about self-care and mindfulness, check out my latest book, Inner Piece: Decluttering a Soul. Available on Amazon here.