Just be yourself.  How often have we heard this advice?  We've heard it again and again because it is good advice.  But it is repeated so often because it is hard to actually do... 

There are so many ways to move away from ourselves, to be what we think other people want us to be, to hide what we feel won't be lovable or admired or even just ok.  We "play it safe" and contort ourselves like Cirque du Soleil performers to fit what we think will be acceptable

We don't want to be rejected or judged or in conflict with others.  We don't want to feel the vulnerability of being our real selves and not being wanted.  But everything you do to not be yourself guarantees you will not get to have your own life.  You will get a life, but it won't be yours because you are not you.

So I should just tell myself that everything will be great and show up in my real self and damn the consequences, right?  Who cares what others think, right? 

Except that if we are honest most of us do care, a bit at least - and depending on the situation, maybe a lot.

The problem is dissonance.  Dissonance is a feeling of discomfort in the body that feels like anxiety and speaks to us about being vulnerable.  

Dissonance is actually about a truth: in this case the truth is you cannot guarantee that another will like you.  You cannot ensure 100% that who you really are will tickle another person's fancy.  It is possible that you will show up in your real self and you will be rejected.  Like so many things in our tender human lives, we are not control of this outcome.

The core capacity for having our biggest life is the ability to tolerate the feeling of vulnerability - "dissonance" - sensations of muscle tension and agitation.  Those physical sensations seem to tell us to STOP whatever it is that is stirring this feeling up.  So if I am exposing my real self to someone and the sensations of dissonance arise, I am strongly urged by forces below my awareness to shut myself down.

So there is a risk - not to life and limb - but to our feelings.  We are not in danger, but we are vulnerable.  It might hurt to not be seen or valued or liked.  Can we tolerate that?  Can we let ourselves be aware of that and still show up? 

So we have a choice. But we cannot make that choice unless we have the ability to take care of what it feels like to be vulnerable.  That capacity, what I call "to have and to hold", is at the heart of growth. Being able to feel the truth of your vulnerablity ('having" your experience), and witness that with warm interest and nonjudgement ("holding" your experience) is necessary if you are to consciously risk being known in your real self.

We deserve to be our real selves, to live our biggest lives, to connect with others from the truth of who we really are.  But it is not easy and we need to be able to take care of what it feels like to take that risk.  To be with ourselves in the little sensations that speak to us of limits to our control over things that matter to us.

That is the foundation that lets us "just" be ourselves.  We need to practice it every day, approaching ourselves the discomfort of being human.  In the moment, in the body.  So that we can matter. 

And you do.

Photo Credit: Sparker