So a lot of this conversation today is going to go back to self because we are a society that have completely lost ourselves in terms of who we are, how we’re showing up. Sometimes we get caught up into what others are thinking or what others may perceive that we tend to lose ourselves. I mean myself included. I spent a majority of my life really giving a lot of cares about what anyone else perceived about me too. They think I was too dark, too skinny, too fat, too tall, too short, too ugly, too pretty. You know, you would go through these different places too – not too smart, not smart enough. Right? I don’t know if you felt this way where when you show up you get so nervous, or I’ve got so nervous that because of what I thought people would perceive of me, it would cause me to dim my own life and not be able to let who I truly am shine out. Part of my development, my personal development, especially going through my greatest challenges and reflecting back on myself, I realize that most of those times I lost myself in that relationship, in that situation, in that really trying time that I didn’t think I could actually come out of at that time. When I reflect back on it, most of what I would come back to is I would wonder what would others think of me. I mean, when I went through the whole diagnosis with Zachary being on the spectrum, I’ll be so honest, I was concerned, “well, what would others think of me? What if they think that I am a bad mom? What if they think that I caused the autism? What if they think that I didn’t know how to handle it? Would they even be able to embrace me with the changes or the differences that my child clearly exhibited when you were around us?”
Right? I began to realize that when I cared more about what others think, I completely breakdown. That’s where the breakdown began. Lived sat in space or countless time. You know I wish I can say it was a limited time, but for most of us it’s years. I mean we’ve spent our childhood with people telling us what we should do, how we should look, how we should act. That was creating a sense of what our self should be, when we actually had the ability to be still and connect with who we truly are. Those weren’t things that anyone was telling us when we were younger. I don’t know about you, but nobody was telling me. I sit down and I remember hearing that “you’re supposed to do that, girls are supposed to do that, black girls are supposed to do this, doctors are supposed to do that, moms are supposed to do that, wives are supposed to do that.” All these social norms of what things people thought that’s how we should be.
So my message today really, and I know I’m going around this in a lot of circles because today, I really wanted to come in and just really reflect on how perceptions can really mess us up. That’s the reality of it. It can really mess us up. It can have us where we completely disconnect from who we truly are, where we are. We can completely disconnect from others around us and most of it is based on what we think others would think. Instead of us realizing that forget what anyone else thinks and get back into the source of who I truly am. Now, I remember, if you go back to my first episode of The Dr. Ali Griffith Show I spoke about who I am and I spoke about me being an audiologist, speech pathologist an autism mom, a book about my journey towards becoming a coach and serving others out there, but it never really truly got to the who, the core of who I truly am. You know what I started to realize when I tapped back into who I truly am, and you can do this as you’re reading, is really think back to who your core self is without any change, without thinking of what others are going to do, without the reflections or the thoughts and opinions of others. But who you are when you’re at stillness, your soul, your core, the thing that you connect with within yourself – who is that? What does that feel like? Does it feel like piece? Does it feel like disarray, does it feel like chaos? And how do you get back to that stillness of self where you reconnect back to just being right? Just being present in all that is around you?
One of the things I really love about me is the fact that I tend to connect really well with people. I’d say that’s one of my gifts. How is it that I show up in the world with the ability to connect with others, but I had to realize that in order to connect with others, first I had to learn how to connect with myself. What does connecting with myself look like? It looks like being still. What does connecting with myself look like? It looks like allowing myself permission to mess up. It looks like embracing all of me, my outside, my inside, my ups, my downs, and most importantly, how I choose to show up in the world. How I choose to want to respond to certain things. I don’t have to do anything anymore because once I connect that to my core self, all I have to do is just be.
So if you’re feeling lost out there and you’re trying to figure out how do I create this whole self love? Self love really just has to do with being in existence with yourself and connecting with who you truly are without any impact that others’ thoughts or new or others’ reflections on you, but you just being and accepting and loving away. You just feel this warm sense of, “yeah, that’s me.” Now you’re not always gonna love you. You’re not always gonna have those moments when you think you’re doing amazingly great because you have to find ways of how to improve yourself. That’s what we’re here for. Each day we strive to be a better self, but as you’re striving to get better and you’re opening up that path back to deepening your self love just get back to your core of self – your core of what it feels like to just be being an existence. Embrace your connection with nature. Embrace your connection with with people. Embrace your connection with strangers. Embrace your connection with those you love and accept that the love for others is just going to look different, just like the love for yourself at times just looks different. Sometimes it looks super duper exciting, and bright, and full of color, and sometimes we’re going through moments where your love of yourself is not so colorful, where you’re just still questioning, “where am I? What do I want to do?” But that’s okay. That’s part of this development called life. That’s part of us growing to be our best selves each day, but yet loving the heck out of ourselves.
I know this is one of those blogs where I’m not going so straight into the points and all these things, but this was just a conversation literally that I’m having with myself that I’m inviting you in to. Let me know what your thoughts are. Let me know what connects most with you. Let me know how does this make you feel, and how do you feel about your self love? What’s your development going like? What is your journey of self love looking like? Let me know all of the above in the comments section! Until next time, be au-mazing in your thoughts, in your words, and in your actions.
This is a transcription of The Dr. Ali Griffith Show. If you’d like to listen to this episode and others you can do so at www.thedraligriffithshow.com. You can also watch episodes if you prefer visuals at www.youtube.com/draligriffith.
Check out some of my other recent blog posts:
3 Au-mazing Tips on How to Mind Your Business
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