Don’t Be Scared To Be Your Real Self

Unleashing your authentic "you"

Polaroid Picture of Woman Sitting on a ChairPhoto byPhoto by Daria Kruchkova

Evolution naturally makes us attached to our family, race, culture, country, religion and so on.

Identifying with the above gives solidity to the “me.” And when the “me” is solid — our lives naturally becomes about defending and expanding the “me.”

What happens next?

We perceive according to our background, and that makes our perception rigid and narrowed. We see what we want to see and if it doesn’t appear to be how we want it to be, we get upset, and you know the rest.

Most of us have heard of Jesus’ beautiful saying, “Judge not lest ye be judged.”

Spirituality is becoming a big part of our lives as we go through all the changes we’re witnessing today.

While most of us enthusiastically jump into this exciting and “ethereal” world— we tend to forget that spirituality isn’t different from sitting in our office, and being annoyed by superiors.

In other words, we’re not so spiritual if we only meditate in our room but spend the rest of our time getting mad about people in the bus, as an example.

Spirituality encompasses everything.

We’re not only spiritual when everything’s fine; we’re also spiritual when we workout, when we interact with people, when we eat, and more importantly — when we have assumptions/judgments about others.

While I considered myself to be pretty spiritual for the last few years, I came to a point in my life where I noticed I had many judgments about almost everyone, and what’s funny is that it’s instantaneous — it happens unconsciously.

How can I consider myself to be so “spiritual” if I condemn everyone, for no real reason, all the time? The two forces oppose each other.

When we’re younger, especially during childhood, we internalize the judgments we get from the world. Eventually, as we grow up, we feel “held back” by our feeling of inadequacy as life invites us for expansion.

We’ve said it and we’ll keep saying it — we’re all hurt, and we didn’t always know what to do with those hurts.

We can’t blame others for our problems, they’re going through their own stuff just as we do. But these hurts exist, and somehow, we must process them.

Seeing this conflict within me — feeling so spiritual and yet, being judgmental — I realized that my condemnations would never end, I’d always find something to be wrong with someone or something.

That’s when I decided to retract my attention from what I was finding to be so wrong with others, and instead — follow the lead within me. Why were all these judgments “generated,” instantaneously and unconsciously?

When we try to hide something, it’s a common strategy to create distractions away from the actual location. The unconscious isn’t different. The world as it is now has been created by this same unconscious ways after all.

But here’s the thing. The more noise we seem to create in a certain direction, the more we expose what we try so hard to hide.

If I unconsciously condemned everyone and everything for no real reason, was it a distraction from all the condemnations against myself — the ones I didn’t want to deal with, the ones that hurt me so much, at some point in my life?

As I “saw” this happening within me, I understood how useless it is to judge people — I was now left with the hurts I hid from myself. And sure enough, memories from childhood experiences started coming up to the surface.

When we were kids, we desperately craved our parents’ validations. Whatever they said was turned into a “divine commandment.”

As an example, my mother often spoke of her father, who was disciplined and responsible in his life. Her admiration and love for her father, and his ways — made her despise lazy and irresponsible people.

And my admiration and love for her transmitted the pattern.

I grew up to be, in my humble opinion, and in others’ words, responsible. And just like her, I despised laziness most of my life. Actually, it wasn’t until this deep examination that I noticed how much I condemned laziness.

While I love being disciplined and responsible, I don’t love to condemn laziness. This is a judgement. And when I judge, I don’t perceive with absolute clarity — my view of the world becomes biased, and that judgement predisposes me to create conflicts with others who prefer the couch — and there’s nothing wrong with that.

My personal investment against laziness exposed my narrowed perspective. Laziness isn’t “bad,” I made it so. And I made it so because I craved validation. Because I felt inadequate without that validation. And that’s perfectly natural for a child.

How can I love the whole world, unconditionally, if I condemn even an atom?

On one hand, my craving for validation made me conform to certain principles I’ve learned from my parents, from teachers and anyone I admired.

On the other hand, my hurts which I experienced by feeling inadequate made me detest certain ways, which are now expressed in the forms of judgments against people and the world in general.

Let’s be clear: some traits such as responsibility, diligence or accountability, as examples, are invaluable in comparison to others, such as complaining all the time or being too selfish. But while we may prefer more harmonious traits over others, which is natural as we grow spiritually — having a personal investment against the “bad” ones shows an imbalance within us.

What I soon discovered during my reflections was that being attached to our ways helps us escape from having to deal with the repressed stuff within us.

When we’re attached, we’re insecure. When we’re insecure, we always have to defend the objects of our attachment. In the case of our judgments, we want others to conform to our ways.

And you know what happens when we’re desperate about it, people revolt — which is natural — and fights result. Both parties become even more rigid in their positions, and that makes them blind to the entire dynamic.

Kisses and cuddles may calm things for a few times. But eventually, the cycle repeats itself.

This reminds us of the following song:

If you find something to be wrong with the world, whether you’re aware of it or not, it might be time to discard the pattern and start paying more attention within.

It’s okay to feel things. It’s okay to accept it wasn’t our fault nor others’. Through forgiveness — we don’t only heal, but we also create healthier relationships with each other.

Nothing is fundamentally wrong, some traits are preferable over others, but we can’t force people to conform to our ways. That’d just reveal immaturity.

The best place to create change in the world comes from an unbiased mind. When we perceive clearly; we’re free to act in ways that maintain harmony.

Saying “Judge not lest ye be judged” is easier said than done, but, it holds a lot of truths which you can always find by looking within yourself. You’re your best book, and teacher.

“Know Thyself.”

As you relinquish judgments made against yourself, and embrace your experiences to the fullest — all that’s left to come out is your pure essence — so, don’t be scared to be your damn real self.

As a final note.

If you’ve been meditating, using affirmations and thinking positively for a while now, without necessarily integrating spiritual truths at a soul level even though you understand them intellectually — I’ve written a book to help you understand the main blocks to true spiritual growth, and how to overcome them. Most people don't realize it but, true spiritual growth only happens by getting out of our brain (yes...) and more into our heart. How to do this; that's what's explained in Spiritual Transition. Check Spiritual Transition here.