There are three ways to be true to yourself;
1. In mind/thoughts – know your value, know you are enough. If you don’t respect yourself, why should anyone else respect you? The world sees what you sow.
2. In heart (soul) affinity, deep desire to experience.
3. In body (gut instincts).
If we are healthy we will be making rational choices and logical thinking. We are working together with all three attributes to make the correct compass position or dream? Living in your head can be a dangerous and unhealthy place if not in tune with your heart and gut. Thoughts without fine-tuning are misleading.This leads us to a number of problems including: anxiety, fear, depression, sadness, frustration, resentment and challenges with relationships with the self plus others including friends, family, partners and work colleagues.
Our self-limiting behaviours, beliefs and mind – body symptoms serve as guidance for feedback. Sadly the medical model has everyone thinking that we should medicate anything and everything that is a distraction from our unattainable highs and the instant gratification lifestyle. Behaving like this is literally killing the messenger. We need to be clear on what our dream is. If you don’t have a clear dream or goal you cannot come form a place of rationality and can only live what other people think. It is in fact is in our heart and bodies that give us the greatest feedback and clues to if we are using the creative power of our minds.
Research shows that when the average child graduates from high school, they will of spent more time watching TV commercials than school hours of education. Deepak Chopra said the average person has 68 thousand thoughts a day of which 90% are negative. Our thoughts should work in harmony with our dream?
The Asche phenomenon
Over coming the pressure to conform – this is conscious behaviour known as ‘Asche phenomenon’ Solomon Asch conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform. Asch (1951) devised what is now regarded as a classic experiment in social psychology, whereby there was an obvious answer to a line judgment task. If the participant gave an incorrect answer it would be clear that this was due to group pressure. Decisions are the way you navigate life; each one determines your course. To Make decisions that are authentic to your true self, you must first have a firm grasp of who your true self is. When I coach or mentor people in this area, I always point them back to their values. Our values are the “north star” of our decisions. They are those constant markers that remind us of who we are and where we are headed. Apparently, people conform for two main reasons: because they want to fit in with the group (normative influence) and because they believe the group is better informed than they are (informational influence). The clip at the top is not from the original experiment in 1951, but an acted version for television from the 1970s.
Most of us conform as we don’t want to be thought of peculiar or different, to fit in. Confirming and agreeing with the crowd makes us like everyone else. This is a tortured situation because our identity shifts from being authentic to being what everyone else wants. If you truly want to be remarkable you must first learn how to be yourself; this means living authentically with a deep sense of who you are and what you have to offer. The trouble comes when we make decisions — not based on our values — but based on public opinion, our circumstances, or what “everyone else” does. When we do this, we are not being true to who we are, but merely reacting to the world around us. When we have a belief system of thought we need to question it and say is this working for me? What is the belief system behind this? If we are feeling healthy and beautiful we will question instead of playing cat and mouse games? What is your heart telling you? What do I love rather than living everyone else belief system, this can be parents, school, work, religion etc. Use your soul and make your unique contribution.
Analogy of a jigsaw- when building a jigsaw if there is one piece missing then yes will be drawn to that missing piece. It’s the same with the body. The missing piece is saying like of completion, unfulfilled and incomplete. When we are missing the one piece, it creates chaos and rigidity. Do you have the courage to be true to your heart? We are taught throughout life what to think? Rather than how to think? The soul’s impulse tells us to challenge life fully. A life worth living is sustainable and is a labour of love; most people are just labouring not being true to the heart.
To make authentic decisions we must let our values shape our actions, our actions become our habits, and our habits become our character. When our character is consistent with our values, making authentic decisions becomes second nature.
• Values: Your values are what are important to you regardless of your circumstances.
• Actions: Your actions are what you consciously do.
• Habits: Your habits are your subconscious behaviours — what you do without even thinking about it.
• Character: Your character is your true self.
Bibliography
Paul Chek Blog
Better Humans – Matt Russell
