The alliance you form with yourself
2 key elements to reconnect with yourself
This article is not to teach you anything special but to remind you that your primary relationship is one that you have with yourself so don’t take yourself for granted and do all that is required to reconnect with yourself.
I have always been a quiet kid. I never really spoke unless I needed to and always kept to myself. I wasn’t particularly shy of people but I have always been very choosy of the kind of people I liked to hang out with. As an introvert I always found the best company in books, music, dance, and games etc., we weren’t allowed to watch TV as and when we pleased and there was no internet or mobile phones. So, books and cartoons were how I usually spent much free time. And I never really complained about not having too many friends.
As I grew older, I had to find ways to make friends and I wasn’t always very good at it. I wasn’t social and I liked only what I liked. I wasn’t interested in doing most things that my peers perhaps enjoyed and I remember I had reached this place where I started questioning if there was something wrong with me. There wasn’t much awareness of introversion; a quiet kid meant a shy or mentally slow kid. I always felt uneasy among people I couldn’t relate with but the people I could relate with, I could also spend hours and not worry.
But I always assumed that something was wrong with me and I just didn’t want to be me. I wanted to be someone else and feel normal. I didn’t have a very healthy alliance with myself or any good alliance at all.
What I have learned from my own journey is that perhaps, you already know who you are but you question that because it is not something that is easily accepted by the people around you.
Today introversion is recognized and accepted easily and not questioned. In fact, the more I accept who I am even today, I meet people who are similar. I’ve met so many introverts after I accepted that I am one. I also met so many creatives the moment I started recognizing myself as one. I also came across a lot of opportunities that helped me explore my creativity so much more.
So, then the question I often ask myself is this, ‘How honest have I been with myself? How honest am I about who I am to myself? And how honest can I be to form a better connection with myself?’
I’ve often believed and followed this simple analogy that the kind of alliance you form with yourself, the events in your life, and the people in your life are placed that way. The more you accept yourself, you will come across situations and experiences accordingly. So, it is genuinely important to understand the kind of association you have with yourself.
The idea is not to be perfect or not to bring in perfection but to find a way to understand yourself and accept yourself better. This will give you an idea as to how much of a gap is still there and how can you find a way to accept yourself even more. The more you can accept yourself, it becomes that much easy to show up for yourself or stand your ground.
Sometimes it is possible that you will lose yourself or get slightly lost in distractions but this also happens when you aren’t completely comfortable showing up as who you are. Sometimes it’s necessary to let go of the people that hold you back or weigh you down because the influence of their energy plays a huge role in how you need to protect your authentic self. Sometimes it can be difficult to cut people off from your life. In such times, it is important to gauge how much of their presence and involvement you want in your life. It can be difficult to show up as your authentic self when your surrounding makes you feel unwelcomed or you feel insecure or unseen.
In my journey, I’ve noticed that the more I started trusting myself the less validation I needed from others. The more I started relying on myself the less I needed other people to rely on. The more I started focusing on myself and what felt right to me, I stopped focusing on what other people think. The more I started prioritizing myself the more private I became and that helped me build my confidence. I could show up as who I was and not be embarrassed about it.
There is a reason why so many creatives tend to lock themselves up and only focus on work when they have a big project or an assignment they need to get to because it needs to come from their authentic self. For most creatives, their work is not just work but it becomes a part of who they are, and each time they share their creation with the world, it's as if they’re laid out a part of who they are for everyone to see. It’s vulnerable and meaningful to them.
I’ve also noticed that most creatives tend to choose who they wish to associate themselves with because they believe if not consciously, in the energy they tend to absorb. They constantly are fighting for motivation and upliftment. They love being around people who speak the same kind of language as they do. Most creatives also describe themselves as sensitive because they tend to operate from their authentic self. They need to have a deeper connection with who they are than they do with anybody else.
Even for those who don’t consider themselves creatives, it is just as essential to pause and understand the kind of alliance you wish to form with yourself. Because that’s how the world outside of you is going to appear to you.
I have always felt that understanding two key elements is important to continue to form a good alliance with oneself –
Values – The kind of values that are important for you matter when you show up as your authentic self. you tend to attract the kind of people who also carry more or less the same kind of values as you do. This is not to belittle or berate anyone but, in my opinion, values are an important element when you want to come to yourself or when you feel as if you’re lost or feeling as if something is weighing you down. Values are in my opinion a great way to build healthy connections. If you feel that there is a lot of difference between the values in the connection then it’s completely okay to distance yourself from them and take time to gauge the connection. I’ve often asked a lot of clients what their values are and I’ve found that sometimes they take a few days or even months to figure it out. Values may seem very easy at first but I’ve always come back to it anytime I feel as if I’m slightly lost and disconnected with myself. It’s a great place to start for me.
Activity – On a page, make a list of the values that feel like they’re coming from your authentic self. How do they make you feel? Which values have you been compromising on? How can you reconnect with it again? What steps do you need to take? What distractions do you need to eliminate?
Narrative – This one is a game changer in my experience. The kind of story we tell ourselves can really help change our perception about how we see ourselves and our lives. Even though it is easier said than done, it is extremely essential to come back to the narrative. Again, each narrative is based on one’s conditioning and needs and wants in their life. Only you can tell if your narrative is healthy for you or if you need to work on it even more. But let’s say your narrative is, ‘People are always jealous of me’ and say you kind of feel good about it then it may boost your ego momentarily but in the long run, you may end up meeting people who will eventually not uplift you and that again can be damaging. If your narrative is, ‘Love is always difficult for me’ then you will always need to fight for love in any capacity, and due to this narrative, you may find it difficult to accept or even see any kind of love that is available to you because your narrative says love is not easy. Even if you experience unpleasant or unexpected events and changes in your life, ask yourself what kind of a narrative have you been repeating day in and day out. Figuring this out will truly help you reframe the narrative and you’ll notice the changes immediately.
Activity – On a page, write down how you would best describe yourself right now. Focus on the words you use for yourself. Now pause to see how these words affect your current narrative. Would you categorize them as healthy and uplifting or unhealthy and depleting? If it is unhealthy and depleting, what do you think has caused you to think or feel this way? What steps do you need to take to change them? What kind of a narrative do you think you would like? Why do you find it hard to believe in your narrative? What limiting beliefs hold you back? Are there certain people you’d like to distance yourself from or certain places?
It can require a lot of courage when you need to put yourself first but before any relationship, the primary relationship that you have is with yourself and it’s really important to be truly you. Sometimes we spend a huge portion of our existence just trying to fit in and feel accepted and we miss a chance to be who we really are.
In order to accept myself and be me, I’ve had to let go of a lot of people and change a lot of things in my life but I’ve experienced freedom in doing so. When I work with clients, I don’t make decisions for them. I only direct them to pause and check with their authentic self. Sometimes for the sake of not being left out, we give in and force ourselves to do things that make us feel suffocated and miserable. I’ve done that too, very recently in fact, and it requires a lot of introspection to be able to break free.
I completely understand that everyone has their own priority and the way they wish to live their life may vary and that’s the whole point of this article, a way to encourage you to form an alliance with yourself that you don’t need anyone else to direct or take over your life in any way at all.
This article is not to teach you anything special but to remind you that your primary relationship is one that you have with yourself so don’t take yourself for granted and do all that is required to reconnect with yourself.
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