I don’t know about you, but for a long time when people would tell me ‘just be yourself’ I really struggled to understand what that meant. Who is Wendy? Am I not being myself currently? In fact one of my trauma responses resulted in blocking and repressing my entire childhood. I remember even telling my best friends (Abi & Musyoka) and therapist how I sometimes felt like a clone cause I had no idea who I was and I barely remembered my childhood. I adopted and absorbed people’s personalities, values and beliefs, and watered down my own presence because of my crippling people pleasing behavior back then. And also because I felt like I needed to be a certain type of person or certain version of Wendy to be accepted. I later realized that most of these expectations I thought people had were non-existent and I imposed them. I created a version of myself that I believed lived in people’s minds and worked so hard to meet those projected expectations. I know, GHETTOOOOOOOOO.
From when we are young, we’re taught that there’s a right way to do things or a right path to follow. With this comes pressure to conform and compromise to fit into this box that society has labeled as ‘good’ or ‘successful’ or ‘right’. Because of this and a myriad of other reasons, we develop layers of fear, insecurity, self-loathing, unworthiness, and darkness, and we put on a mask to cover these wounded parts of ourselves and to come off as who we think will be accepted as a good version of ourselves. We suppress our true selves and do what we think is acceptable while lowkey hating on or being dissatisfied with the person we’ve become or who we truly are.
Over the last few years (panoramic times), my self-reflection and introspection has been on steroids. I just randomly find myself thinking deep thoughts about who I am and everything in between. Peeling the layers has been so tough honestly, but it was all worth it because I found Wendy, and now I’m getting to know her. Today I want to share my journey towards finding my authentic self.
Who Am I When Nobody’s Around
I think the first step I took in this journey was asking myself core questions and observing who I am when I’m alone. What are my core beliefs and values? How do I behave in situation X vs. Y? What do I enjoy doing? How do I relate to myself? What have I been through and how has that shaped the person I am today? What are my strengths and weaknesses? How have I been a bad friend, lover, daughter, sister etc. and what have I done right in these roles? This process happened for a long time and I found myself hesitating with being true to myself. We often wear masks for so long that we forget or get uncomfortable while taking them off. Today I listened to Lydia’s Thursday IG Live and she said something that struck me – we often make ourselves the victim because taking accountability is hard – which is another reason why it can be hard to be honest with ourselves. But you know what, we owe it to ourselves to be accountable, honest and vulnerable with ourselves.
Give Myself The Grace To Become
After a long time of introspection, journaling and answering the questions above, I got so impatient. I couldn’t understand why I still didn’t feel like I found myself. I knew me theoretically and factually but I hadn’t met with Wendy yet. Then it dawned on me, I’m expecting too much too soon. I mean these are layers and layers built over 23 years – it’s gonna take a lot more than answering a couple of questions on my journal to peel them off completely. I can’t immediately figure out everything and really if you look around, everything is constantly becoming. Flowers and plants are constantly blooming and fading away, our appearances keep changing as time goes by, there is literally no state of ‘being done’ in nature, but a state of becoming, a state of constant evolution. And I needed to give myself the grace to become authentically me and be present for the whole journey.
Allowing Vulnerability To Enter The Group Chat
Like it or not, vulnerability and authenticity are best friends who support each other and love to see each other grow. Without the willingness to accept and share all parts of ourselves (good, bad, neutral), authenticity can’t be present. These besties go everywhere together. Vulnerability is particularly hard for me, however when I finally mustered the strength and courage to acknowledge and accept who I am/was in this/that moment and share it with myself and others, I also found myself growing closer to my true self. Remember when I said I found it hard to be honest with myself? I realized that taking off the mask I kept when nobody was around that ‘saved’ me from self-disappointment and brought me closer to the ‘ideal’ (whatever that even means) was hindering me from facing, holding and loving my true self.
Removing Judgement From The Group Chat
A lot of the time, we judge ourselves more than our loved ones do. And this can be as a result of feeling judged or not accepted especially in our childhood. I choose to remember that I am safe and more often than not the people around me will be supportive. In fact, my perception of their perception of me (read that again) is a self-created prison that I can walk out of if I just let go of the judgment and realize that it’s only a thought. This also took a degree of work and inner child healing.
Allowing Myself To Forge My Own Path
I cannot stress this one enough. As I mentioned earlier, growing up, it’s almost like society gives you the blueprint to a ‘perfect life’. That blueprint is so generic aki! School-job-marriage-family-death. People around you can even go to the extent of creating a timestamp for when these parts of life should be fulfilled. Finish school by 22, get a child by 25 etc. I mean how unrealistic is this? We’re all so diverse and unique so how can we all have the same journey of life? There’s so many recipes for success or finding the right partner or job or how to raise your kids and it’s so weird. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have guides and to have knowledge and wisdom from those before and around us, but we also need to learn how to make our own rules. It’s called balance -learn when to utilize the knowledge and wisdom before you and when to venture into the unknown and play with self discovery. I mean what if they don’t know everything? What if formula X doesn’t work for me at all or needs me to make some personal adjustments? Think of all the times scientists and all the brilliant minds thought they knew or discovered something only to relearn new discoveries which changed their original thought. Trusting myself enough to forge my own path was hard, but I did it anyway and I’m so proud of myself because it’s brought me closer to who I always wanted to become, my values and beliefs and ultimately, myself.
Now, I’ve definitely not figured it all out yet, but I’ve made significant progress and I’m loving the girl I’ve met and gotten to know in the process. Dear reader, I hope you keep reaching for the truth. I hope that as you read this, it resonates with a part of you and that you internalize what’s helpful and discard what isn’t. I hope you continue to be patient and kind to yourself as you find your truth. And remember, it’s never too late or too early to start. You are everything you asked for and more, you just need some time to peel off the layers.
-All the love, Wendy xx