Tag Me Tuesdays-#304 The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast

I Love Who I Am

I know Halloween can be some people’s favorite holiday. They love the candy, they love seeing the kids all dressed up, or maybe they love getting dressed up themselves and going to parties. It’s kinda like some of those comic conventions, also known as comic cons, that you can go to. You know… the places that have events where celebrities will sell you their autographs, or they have panels of actors or authors who will talk about upcoming movies or events and even answer your questions you can ask, or they’ll have comic artists who will draw and sign memorabilia for you. It’s a place for the fans to really and truly interact with their favorite actors and artists. The most famous one is out in San Diego. I’ve gone to a few local ones here, and people get dressed up as their favorite characters, which is called cos-play, and go to enjoy the day while being dressed up.

I think it’s cool that other people will enjoy pretending to be something else…and maybe I’ve become too grown up as I don’t find the joy in that anymore. Maybe it’s because I’m still holding onto a stupid notion I learned in high school of trying to be cool, to not be seen as goofy, or not being able to let loose and be who I want to be no matter what I’m doing. Because in high school you’re trying to be seen as little as possible, so you aren’t a target to be heckled or chastised for being your real self.  We have this fear of being found out who we are and not being good enough.

But coming back to dressing up, I don’t think I would ever be a good actor, I get really nervous trying to act in front of people… to try and be something that I’m not. Yes, I think it’s cute seeing all the kids dressed up in their costumes on Halloween, but I don’t see myself getting dressed up to go to a party or a comic convention anymore… maybe because you have to have friends to be invited to those…but I know I can be a little too uptight at times. And this may be one of those times, as I saw someone post something on their social media feed saying they were ready to go back to their normal life after their Halloween weekend of dressing up in multiple costumes for multiple events…and someone commented, “Why??? Make believe is more fun than reality.”

I understand what the person who made the comment was saying, but I think that’s a sad statement about our lives because…reality should be fun. Yes, there will be things we don’t like to do—like paying the bills, being responsible for other people, and having to be serious at times when we just want to have fun. And I see that we try to escape our lives in as many ways as possible instead of enjoying the people we are.

Now don’t get me wrong… if you love dressing up, then do it. We all have fun things we love to do, but I want you to ask yourself if you are trying to escape your life any way that you can. The costume is not the issue…where you put your mind…might be. So, what if you were to stop trying to escape who you are and embrace the beautiful person you are? What if you were to stop daydreaming you were in another job, or that you had more money, or better relationships, or had it easy like the people you envy?

When we continually look to escape our lives, we can never fully enjoy the beautiful things that are already in our lives. Yes, we say we love the things in our lives, but if we are trying to escape our lives then we are not truly loving ourselves, AND the things in our lives…we are merely tolerating them. So, dress up if it brings immense joy in your life…but ask yourself if you are really trying to escape the boredom of your life? Because make believe isn’t more fun than reality…it’s a misleading statement because make believe actually makes our reality. What we dream about we make ours…and so if you are pretending to be something you think you can never be…then you will always be in the mode of continually escaping…instead of continually pursuing the things you truly wish for your life.

So let us not escape our lives, but let us embrace who we are. Let us see more of ourselves and stop living in a fantasy, and let us be working to create our dreams into our realities. Let us not just dress up trying to be something different for a few hours…but let us become comfortable in our skin to see more of ourselves and be able to put action to our dreams…not just pretend to be in them for only a moment. Let us turn the comment of make believe on it’s head and say…”why would I want to stay in make believe when I create a better reality?”

Today’s Personal Commitment:
Get a sheet of paper and write down:

• The things that you are trying to escape in your life.
• Write down the ways or the habits you use when trying to escape things.
• And then write down how you can use a better habit or tactic, to embrace the thing you’ve been avoiding.

For me, anytime I had a serious conversation with a romantic partner of mine that I didn’t want to have… I would always joke about it or try to make them laugh so it could be forgotten about. I figured if I kept avoiding it, then it would just go away. But all it did was magnify the problem over time. And it also was disrespectful to my partner as they saw a problem that I didn’t want to fix, or even just address by listening to them. I pretended like I listened when I knew it was easier to joke and avoid the issue altogether.

When you become aware of what you’re afraid of and avoiding, and when you see the habits you utilize when you try to avoid…then you can begin creating a different system to change the outcome. Because you never avoid anything you are trying to run from, you just try to make it invisible, which makes you run right into it every time…and It becomes the controlling thing in your life. It’s like the saying, even when you don’t make a decision you are still making a decision. And avoiding something that is hard for you to address isn’t making it go away…it’s only making it harder to fix the longer you let it bleed in your life.

I Love Who I Am

 

 

Thanks for listening.  I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together,
Personal Development Life Coach-
Chris O'Hearn

Contact info- email: [email protected]  phone:865-219-3247

 

 

Music by:
- Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
- I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee USA but available worldwide