Whatever your opinion is of Bruce Jenner taking on his new identity, Caitlyn Jenner, you have to respect the courage it took her to be and act in a way that completes her and gives her personal ease. Personal ease is a very elusive notion that spans way beyond being “able to sleep at night,” taking it much further.
Having the ability to share what moves you on the inside without being affected by judgement from the outside world is a very liberating way to live. Is it easy to do? No. Of course it’s not easy. Unfortunately, the day and age we live in promotes a social norm standard that insists people think and live a certain way, and when you don’t, you are opening yourself up to ridicule, scrutiny and abandonment. You’ve heard the saying, “what will the neighbors think?”
I get how scary it is to open your life up. There is much you can lose by expressing yourself in a way that’s true to your own beliefs, wants, needs and desires. But what are you gaining by being such a suffocated soul? How well do the people you associate with really know YOU? That’s a serious question…
How well do people actually know you? Moreover, how well do you actually know them? Are you truly able to develop true intimate relationships with people who project who they want you to believe they are? Or worse, with people who hide or tell nothing of substance about themselves to you? Are these strawman relationships worth having?
I’m not saying you have to be a bleeding heart to everyone you meet and wear everything about yourself on your sleeve. What I am saying is relationships are not even worth creating on a false premise. They’re as fake as the people who are afraid to put themselves “out there” in a true manner. I know we all dance to a different beat, but at the same time we all have a need to be accepted. Here is what you’re missing out on by living your life driven by fear, fear to be yourself.
- If there are things burning inside you that you refuse to express or unearth you may be missing the solace of finding a likeminded person to share that passion.
- If you are suppressing feelings from your past because they hurt too much or you are ashamed of something you did keeping that bottled up will only push you further away from the people who want to be close to you but give up at some point because the mountain that is you is too hard to climb.
- Finding an intimate relationship with an open soul person will be next to impossible. Sooner or later they will want to know YOU and all the time you spend hiding and suppressing will catch up to you and they will eventually be drawn in a different direction, away from you.
- Living as a shell is lonely. You’re never truly fulfilled and you never will be until you liberate whoever you are and who the person is that you’re afraid to reveal. Nothing sadder than two shells that attach themselves together in a relationship. Or as I like to call it “strangers on the same couch.”
- You’re missing out on life! Life in the sense of being liberated by people having no mistake about who you are and your proclivities. It’s a weird thing… Once you put yourself out there the relationships you develop WILL have meaning. People will believe in you only as much as you believe in yourself. When that spiritual shift takes place you will be on the way to the personal ease I referred to earlier.
Again, I don’t know how you feel about Caitlyn Jenner, and truthfully I don’t care. It’s just very sad to me Bruce spent most of his existence on this earth building fake relationships when he could have been true to his own needs. Time is very precious so if there is something keeping you from opening up and singing your truth about who you are I encourage you to find a way to expose yourself. I promise you’ll be better for it and you will start really enjoying the people you choose to have relationships with because you’ll know they will like you for who you are rather than who you want them to think you are.
Enjoy yourself.
Your pal, Sheik
