Many people talk about the importance of 'being yourself'. It's quite a big self-help industry, isn't it, this whole thing of learning to be yourself.  But don't you think that's more than just a little odd, the fact that you have learn to be you?

Yet I can't count the number of times a client has said to me that they are hoping to learn to be more authentic, more 'themselves'. It sounds on the surface as if that makes sense too.  Yet given the number of personalities we all can display, I sometimes wonder which 'authentic' we'd chose from! 

Who is your authentic self?

Where will you go looking for you?

How will you know when you've found you?

Does all this mean that in a lifetime of searching I might miss myself, pass myself by and somehow never experience what it's like to be me?  It sure seems that way. 

So before we run off to find ourselves, what is this me I am seeking?

A friend and mentor I love dearly and have the great privilege to work closely with at Supercoach Academy is Michael Neill.  Michael shared this distinction in this years' class called "Natural vs Normal."  It's an important one.  I'm going to give my version of what I see Michael might be pointing to and why it's so important in the context of being oneself.

'Normal' is what you might call the familiar way in which our human system operates.  In the normal way of things, it's 'normal' to argue when you are upset.  It is also 'normal' to get upset if someone calls your Dad a loser or cuts you off in traffic. It's normal to be worried and stressed out. It's normal to have concern for your children.

I'm not suggesting normal is bad.  I'm just saying it's, well, normal.  Normal is the conglomeration of things that we really take for granted because so many of us agree that it's just the way it is. Normal is what we take for granted.  Which means it is also invisible to us.  More on this in just a moment. 

By contrast, 'natural' is the state we find ourselves in when we are not all wound up.  It's what happens (yes, naturally) when we are not triggered or speeding around. It is less a state you evoke, a more a state that is just there when nothing else is getting in the way.  I'm struck that the saying 'the natural order of things' is one of those sayings we think refers to mother nature alone, and yet it too suggests a state of being (not a way of being) that is utterly effortless, so completely in tune with life itself as to be almost unnoticeable. It's funny how we think of nature and humans as somehow different.  Surely we too, have a natural order. One that really can't get messed up.  

In other words, when we are not lost in our worried thoughts the natural state of a human being is just that: A human. Being.

Our natural state is a human with all the capacities pre-loaded -- to love, feel connected, to sense what's best for us.  And those simply are as natural as it gets. 

I think the problem with going out there looking to find ourselves is that we are always looking to the world and our experience of what's normal rather than the delicious feeling of what's natural within us.  Maybe we wander off from knowing what that feels like, but it is always there waiting for us.  You'll feel it in moments when you might least expect it -- a surge of joy, a sense of feeling nicely settled, a sense of being connected to someone.

Our own authenticity is really what we experience in ourselves when we are simply in our natural state of mind.  

I absolutely know when I am in my natural state, because I feel good.  Warm feelings, pleasant feelings, these are the signs of your natural self. You don't have to go anywhere or do anything for this to arise in you.   It is just there.

In that sense you could say that stress and worry are unnatural states. Even if they are very normal! 

Once a spiritual seeker approached a great teacher and said, "I'd like to find my perfect mate."
 
The teacher responded with a question, "Are you happy?" she asked.
 
"Very much so! I have a nice house, car and a great job and I'm very grateful."
 
"Are you happy?" she asked again.
 
Surprised, the seeker responded, "Absolutely. I have wonderful teachers and I have studied a great deal. I've come a long way."
 
The teacher listened and looked gently at the student and asked again, "Are you happy?"
 
The seeker became irritated.  He pointed a finger at the teacher accusingly, and said  "You know, if I didn't know better I would think you were trying to get me to realize that I'm already happy so that I will forget all about my question!"
 
"Exactly," said the teacher.
 
We all tend to focus our attention on what we think is missing in our life.  
 
It is as if the journey of life were equivalent to completing a puzzle. Sort of like arriving here on this planet, each of us with the incomplete set and with the missing pieces scattered across the world, waiting to be sought out, claimed and placed in their rightful juxtaposition. 
 
Life becomes a continual search for the right pieces and a feeling of being unfinished until the last pieces arrive.  To cope with this we rely on faith or action -- or both. And I'm not surprised that people have crisis of faith, or that action eventually exhausts us and fails to deliver.
 
Not because action or faith are not helpful, but because there is a fatal flaw in the fabric:  The assumption that we are incomplete. We are not. There is no one on earth who came here needing therapy at birth.
 
No matter who we are or what has happened to us, we all possess capacities to live life that were never taught to us. Capacities that are a given from the time we arrive to the time we die.  No one taught you love for example, you arrived with the ability to love.  No one taught you intelligence, you came here with it and it is yours to use.  And if you think about it, love, intelligence, wisdom, and life itself, will still be here long after we are each gone.  
 
What this must mean is that you are not damaged, partial or in need of any of the true basic necessities. Assuming you define 'basic necessities' as these formless qualities, in other words as your ability to finish the puzzle -- not the puzzle pieces themselves.
 
When we focus on what is missing in life we will always find something.  Yet, when we look inward and reflect on who we are as part of the universal intelligence we are born into, we always find that we are completely well-equipped to guide ourselves through life.
 
 

For more than 4 years I have not had a television.  When I left London to move back to the USA, I simply didn't buy one. Then I found I didn't miss it. And so the years have passed with me remaining unconnected from the  grid. 

What is interesting is that, despite not having a television, I have not missed a single major event in the world.  Three of those events are on my mind today -- the riots in London, the tragedy in Norway, and the blackout in my house last night.  (Yes, the one that took out huge tracts of Arizona, Mexico and Southern California).    

I think they all raise the same question for us as human beings.  How do we be with the fact that bad things happen in life?     

An inescapable fact of human-ness is that stuff happens that is out of our control.    

September 8th our power went down in Southern California and many people were stranded and in difficulty.  In London people were horrified to watch their city spiral into chaos.  Shocked Norwegians and a rising death toll left a wake of mourning families and resuscitated our own memories  of 9/11.  

Life simply refuses to stop challenging us. I don't believe that the answer is to resort to rage or numbness. I also don't think we can escape by avoidance.  And that is certainly not what I'm trying to do by not having a TV!  I want to be fully, intimately engaged in all of life, especially my own.

There is a terrible effect on our individual lives if we don't come to terms with what we don't control.

I notice that very often we end up limiting our responsiveness and dampening our humanity because we assume that trying to understand something is the same thing as condoning it.  But that leaves us even less able to deal with our own lives and be happy.  

On the radio show on this topic ("Bad News and Unwanted Events") I explored this more and talked about how to make sense of life and how to be with life in all it's aspects while still getting up in the morning and going on with having a good day.  

As outside events happen you'll notice that individual responses to those events seems to vary considerably from one person to the next.  This is true no matter how catastrophic the event.  Some people recover quickly, some slowly, some are consumed with grief, some move on, some experience stress and immobilization while others experience a compulsion to help.

The fact that there is never any universal response to anything, tells us not only that people are different, but that the individual feeling of one's own life is specific and unique to them -- no matter what events have been a part of it.  When I began to see more clearly that the game of life was being played inside me first and foremost, I began to feel less buffeted by the news of the world and much clearer about how I wanted to help.

As a result I am also more compassionate with everyone else in their own individual experiences and choices.  It doesn't mean I like everything that happens, but it does mean I have a better understanding of how we all work as humans and how it is that tragic things can happen. That keeps me calm enough to be of use to others in tough times.

If you work supporting others through addictions, crisis and difficulty, and want to have real impact without burning out yourself --  it's possible to raise your own level of functioning so you can be of more use to everyone in your world -- my circle for difference makers. 

I remember when I first started my own business years ago, and I thought the freelance life meant I would be more independent, more in charge of my schedule and able to take off whenever I wanted. 

It was the opposite.

I worked harder and longer with fewer breaks than anytime in my life. I let my thinking convince me "you never know when the work will dry up!" So I took everything that came along. I didn't dare take a break or go on vacation -- in case something came up.  I saw myself as a beggar in a world of scarcity with an insecure future.

I became exhausted and my life and relationships suffered.

What's worse, I ran out of the creative ideas I needed to run my business.  The work didn't dry up, I dried up.

I won't make that mistake again. The only thing that secures your future (if there is such a thing) is your own well-cared for internal resources.  And I don't mean just eating well and going to the gym.  To be fully ourselves we need a free mind. One that is unencumbered by mis-interpreted thoughts of fear, dread and doubt.

That may seem to suggest you go get some better thoughts, buy yourself some confidence or get going on those affirmations, but that's not what I mean.

Forget all that stuff.  If you have to plan, go for some well-planned, 'do nothing' time. Nothing in the diary. Nothing in the schedule. Nothing to fix in your head. No 'better thoughts' to get.  No need to become someone different.

Just relax into yourself.

I've just taken some time off from my own diary and I plan to do it again.  If you'd like to join me...click here