Authenticity

As I sit here struggling to come up with a fitting topic for this post, one simple word suddenly pops into my mind, drawing me into its meaning.  This word conjures up mental snapshots of not only these past couple of weeks, but of my entire life.

As I've begun to adjust to life back home, I realize that this same question of authenticity keeps re-surfacing.  Seven months ago, I traveled half-way around the world to "find myself."  As I continue my reflection on this exciting and adventure-filled time abroad, I question whether I finally stumbled upon the real, authentic me.

As my mind processes this thought, I immediately recognize the irony.  I now realize that this preconceived notion of going abroad to discover oneself  is ironic in that what one is searching for outside oneself (i.e. a change of scenery)  is what one can only gain from searching within.  Until we begin the work within, we will never truly know the bounty of our existence.  In light of this expectation of "finding myself" in New Zealand, I am now aware that I was yet again reaching outside of myself to do this.

For the majority of my existence, I have searched outside myself, admist the ever-disappointing external world.  Whether it's been in the comfort of food, a new inspirational book, or a new fling, the end result is always the same: dejection and emptiness.  In reality, I have been searching endlessly to find and reclaim myself.

Yet I have faltered to recognize this and instead, have looked to the outside world to define my existence whether through a strict fitness regime, self-defeating food rules, or  the societal concept of smart, beautiful or worthy.  And time and time again, the inevitability of temporary feel-good begins to lose its allure as the cycle of disappointment commences yet again.

By altering my patterns to those accepted by society, I have neglected the most important and true part of me.  By abandoning my authentic self and conforming to these conditioned beliefs, I have preoccupied myself with things of no real value or worth.   I realize that what I've always been searching for outside of myself in...food, boys, clothes, has zero to none permanence in this world.

The only thing that is permanent and unchanging is the love that exists within all of us.  This same love is the love we spend and waste years searching for, in money, power, food, sex, drugs, and relationships, only to come up empty-handed, minus the temporary high these things give us.  We search and search for love in all the wrong places.  For what? To feel the pain of human existence?  To appease these self-fulfilling prophecies that we are not worthy, not good enough?

For me, these preconceived beliefs of my worth have led me to reject and abandon myself early on, only to spend years and years looking for this happiness, this love in all the wrong, dead-end places.  By rejecting myself and the parts of me deemed unworthy or not good enough, I inevitably searched outside of myself to make myself whole again.

But I'm finally beginning to learn and embrace the reality that I am not damaged, I am not a lost cause, and these parts of me are not a mistake.  As a result of rejecting myself, I latched onto the false belief that I am not whole and that in order to be whole, I must find that one thing, that one relationship, that one love, to validate my existence.

 Along the way, I abandoned my authentic self, the heart and soul of who I am.  I got trapped in the whirlwind of competition and in the petty worry of being liked and accepted.  Yet, I find myself growing more and more aware of this tendency of mine to base my worth on other's perceptions or opinions of me.

From time to time, we all have lost sight and focus of who we are, and I'm beginning to believe this is as a result of this self-rejection.  In essence, we all have at one point or another, rejected some part of us...the greed, pride, anger, fear, anxiety, or sadness we inherently harbor.  We have dubbed these parts of us unworthy of love or acceptance and have either run away, avoided or worked to overcompensate for these "flaws".  And along the way, we abandoned who we are.

It is only when we begin to embrace and accept all of us, the "good", the "bad", that we move closer and closer to finding ourselves and further away from rejection.  When we remain true and accepting of all that we are, this acceptance and love has no choice but to flow outward.  By doing the work within and coming to terms with all that we are and healing the neglected or rejected parts within ourselves, the onset for the ripple effect of change in our external world is only a matter of time.