Stop Being Who you Aren't

I was reading O magazine while at my son's soccer practice yesterday. I had to stop and go find a pen so I could underline half of the article.  I want to just copy it here and stay out of it-but there is that whole copyright issue-so here is the gist of what I took away from Anne Lamott's article, "Where Do I Start?"

Many of my Self Coaching clients come to me and want to "find themselves."  As if they are somewhere else than where they are in this moment.  I try to help them see that they are here.  They are found. This is it, folks, front and center. Some of us pretend to be lost, because we aren't living in truth.  Anne suggests that the way we discover ourselves, and find the happiness that already resides within, is to: "gently stop being who we aren't."

Genius.

Notice her use of the word, "gently."

We are not beating ourselves into submission, we are gently letting go of anything non-authentic. We do it through peace, not war.  Kindness is the path inward to ourselves.

Next, she reminds us that, " You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren't."

It is like what I tell my clients:  If you live and tell your truth, the people who are meant to be in your life will be there.  If you try something and it doesn't resonate with you, change course and do something drastically different with no regard to "what other people might think."

I have made more mistakes than most of the people I know.  Big, expensive, painful mistakes.  But now I know.  I know that was the wrong direction and I have corrected. I have come back to myself.

I have stopped being who I am not.

But I had to try out who I am not, to discover just exactly who I am.

No regrets.

Just kindness.  Gently becoming more me with each and every disastrous mistake.