Want to Get In Touch With Yourself? Then Be True to Yourself


“I spent the best years of my life
Trying to decide what’s wrong from right
When I had no one to turn to
Told a few lies to get me by...”
Swing Out Sister, Time Tracks You Down

Most everyone is familiar with Shakespeare’s quote “To thine own self be true.” But very few of us honestly live by it; especially codependents/addicts. Every time we’ve busied ourselves with people pleasing, we have been untrue to ourselves as well as those we’re trying to impress with lies. 

We can all relate to the line above from Swing Out Sister, “told a few lies to get me by,” but we most likely have told a “few” too many. Every time we tell someone what they want to hear, instead of what we truly believe, feel or need, we lie to them and to ourselves. In fact, we totally dishonor ourselves by disavowing who we honestly are.

I totally disavowed who I was at a very young age. By the time I reached High School, I was a chameleon. I had long before given up on ever liking the real me. The real me went into a dumpster in a parallel universe somewhere. So I told lie after lie to others to be what they wanted and to try and earn the acceptance I’d given up on giving to myself. 

People pleasing is pure manipulation. When we people please we are being false to everyone, starting with ourselves. The entire time we engage in this dysfunctional behavior, we’re hoping to gain happiness, but we never do. We can’t be happy by being false to our true selves. To make matters worse, we can’t please everyone and trying to do so is totally exhausting.

Recovery teaches us we have to be true to ourselves first and foremost. For so many of us, Recovery becomes a lifetime journey in rediscovering who we really are; of claiming our true likes/dislikes, beliefs, personalities, etc. And by learning to love who we really are.

Over time, we find we don’t have to lie anymore. We don’t have to feel any shame about who we are and we don’t have to people please anymore. We grow to realize we only need the approval of ourselves and our Higher Power. And once we possess that deep within ourselves, no one can stop us from being proud of exactly who we are because we will no longer have a need for anyone’s approval.


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