OutTales around the Fire

As each year goes by, I have begun to notice that I feel more comfortable in my own skin, and in my interactions with the world. Yes, I still get those moments where I find that I am over compromising to fit into the demands of another. However, those moments are no longer the norm of my life. I am noticing as the years go by, that I am taking more risks at being myself.

In a recent post, I shared my reflections on ‘being different and the journey towards self-acceptance’. The fact of the matter is, for a long time that second wolf I talked about was running my life – ‘the wolf of conforming and hiding, in order to feel a sense of validation and acceptance’. The wolf of compromise, and playing small.

This second wolf had become part of my nature, that for a long time I came to see it as ‘the norm’. Behind the scenes, I knew that the energy motivating the wolf was a fear of rejection. In my mind, I came to believe that taking the risk to be myself, meant abandonment by ‘the other’.

This morning, as I was thinking about what to write on the subject of ‘risk’, I found myself remembering a number of examples where I had taken risks during the course of the past few years. A phone call interrupted my thoughts, it was an engineer calling to set-up a time to connect my TV aerial. ‘I’ll come round between 12 and 5’, he said. I replied saying ‘I am going to be out and do not expect to be back until 1pm, does that work?’. As I said this, I internally wondered why I had said ‘1pm, when I knew that the earliest and most reasonable time for me was more like 2pm. I did not correct this, I simply let it be.

I was intrigued by the conversation with the engineer and spent sometime afterwards journaling my thoughts. ‘I do not know the engineer and there was therefore no reason for me to have a fear of rejection, so why did I compromise and not simply express my needs’, I wondered.

As I reflected on the situation, I came to observe that there was a corresponding energy, motivating my second wolf of ‘compromise and hiding’. That energy came in the form of a statement, which was ‘I am not worthy’. I came to understand that through the years, I had come to believe that expressing my needs (in this case, to the engineer) would be met with a statement of ‘who do you think you are?’ which would subsequently trigger within me, shame and a feeling of unworthiness. As a coping mechanism, I would therefore hide, compromise or collude.

As it turned out, I did get home before 1pm and the engineer came round much later than that; but that’s really not the point and does not really matter. What I discovered from this morning’s conversation, on the issue of being myself and expressing my needs has really helped me set an intention for this month, this year… in fact, for the rest of my life. And that intention is, to have as my daily mantra ‘I am worthy of expressing my needs’, ‘I am worthy of living my own life’, ‘I am worthy’.

Deep in my core, I came to understand this morning that, ‘Believing I am worthy, gives me the courage to risk being myself’.

Copyright © 2012 OutTales.