As a self-help editor, I read a lot of self-help articles and I recently came across a quote that had a bit of an impact on me.:
“The Universe is an ever renewing, incredibly infinite source of potential, yet we often keep our vision so trained on the tiniest little speck of reality.”
– Â Jennie Lee /Â Read the Full Article:Â http://myyoga.tv/vRVk
I’ve been feeling a little bit stuck for awhile now. With every step forward I experience an inordinate amount of resistance. At one point I actually thought that it would be easier to just stay exactly where I was. Taking risks and moving forward with my career… it just felt too scary. I didn’t want to experience that sort of pressure in my life. I wanted to simply be comfortable… for once. This phase only lasted a week. I realized how silly my reasoning was, and I forced myself to acknowledge that all of this was coming from a place of fear.
Still, no matter how hard I pushed forward my past always seemed to hold me back. Words like shy, insecure, afraid, nerd… these words rang in my ear on a daily basis. They were part of my identity and severing this tie felt impossible. Words like confident, secure, loved, talented, role model… although I always hoped to embody these words, they just weren’t me. I felt discouraged as I replayed the same patterns over and over again.
Then I came across the quote that I shared above. I began to think more about a post that I recently wrote about choosing memories of love over betrayal. I decided to choose to focus on the negative versus the positive. I decided to simply pretend to be the person that I wanted to be.
I’m sure you’ve heard this expression before: “fake it until you make it.” I used to think that by doing this, I was lying to the people around me. I didn’t want to be insincere… but I was also sick and tired of being afraid and of reliving the same failures and insecurities over and over again. I wanted to finally believe in myself. I wanted to move forward in my career and my life. So I decided to fake it.
Yesterday I attended an event for bloggers in Vancouver. Before arriving at the event I repeated positive affirmation after positive affirmation to myself:
“I belong here”
“I’m confident, self-assured and successful”
“I love and believe in myself fully and completely”
Of course none of these things are necessarily  a lie, but they are very different from the phrases that normally run through my head. As a result of this shift I am experiencing a bit of an out of body experience. I don’t feel like me… and yet at the same time I am the happiest that I’ve been in a long time. My voice has suddenly unlocked (every time I speak I even think I sound different) and the tension that I have been carrying in my shoulders has suddenly dissolved away. When I look in the mirror I even see someone different. Everything feels different and I feel as though I am watching someone else lead my life… then I realize that it’s still me.
“The Universe is an ever renewing, incredibly infinite source of potential”
This quote continuously rings in my ears, and I wonder if it’s okay to finally let go of my past. I wonder if it’s okay to suddenly be things that I always affirmed that I wasn’t. I wonder if, maybe, letting go is a lot easier than I may have previously believed.
Have you ever faked it? Can you really create your reality? Can you really create your identity?
If you’re not actually chained down by your past, then who the hell are you?
Christine! I’m glad you came to the YVR Bloggers event! Eye-opening stuff isn’t it? It also encourages you to get out of your comfort zone and connect with people that do what we already do: talk about what interests us, what inspires us, and what we love.
And I don’t think you are “faking it to make it”, I believe that you are working towards that optimal 2.0 version of yourself– all that you KNOW in the back of your mind you embody, but haven’t quite mastered yet. Perhaps you just need to practice reciting the positive affirmations mantras in a more passionate, exciting way (to quell the shyness). Perhaps you need to practice ALLOWING yourself to be confident, secure, talented… these labels are just labels, and it’s strange how a label can inform your decision as to what your personality should be. As a kid, someone pointed out that I was “perky” and I had no idea what that word meant. When I asked my Dad, he confirmed that I am and I had since used that as a self-identifier. Then again, because I require specific directives when assigned a task, growing up as a kid my mother would accuse me of lacking “common sense” or “street smarts” (Ugh, Mom? “Street smarts”? We were living in the affluent suburban city, what kind of street smarts are we talking here??). So for a long time, I did not trust my own judgement and constantly sought approval because I perceived that label solidified my being. But I didn’t have to. I just had to self-identify with being ME. And these labels offer only a cut-and-dried version of the fully flavourful people that we are!
So in a long-winded, round-about way, I just wanted to tell you that You Are Awesome. I have seen you work, I have seen you play, I have seen you move around in space and everyday, bit by bit, you are growing more and more into owning your space and it is inspiring to witness. I can’t speak for your “Fake Identity”; I’m just praising the real one 😉
Daryne! Thank you so much for your reply! This means so much to me, and what you’re saying makes so much sense. It’s so strange how we cling onto these beliefs that we got from other people. I mean, I don’t think most people would consider themselves as shy if someone hadn’t called them shy first. Words like shy and perky, their all judgments that come from other people. It’s so interesting how we trap eachother inside of these constricting boxes.
I just want to say that I think you’re pretty awesome too.
I’ve always felt that as far as the fake it till you make it idea- that we aren’t necessarily “faking” it, we are just letting a different side of ourselves take the reigns for a bit. Whatever qualities we want to embody, they already exist inside us but I think they’re a bit like a muscle- we have to work at them and let them take over every so often until they become our strongest and most dominant qualities. 🙂 great post though 🙂
Victoria, what you said makes so much sense. I sort of had to ruminate over it for a couple of days. This is actually what I believe acting is all about: accentuating different aspects of you. Thank you. Somehow hearing (or reading) someones thoughts helps me to feel less weird for thinking it. Do you ever get confused by identity. Identity has confused me since I was a kid.