How often do you feel like you don’t want to be the person you are right now?
Is there a constant desire in you to redirect your life, go beyond just existing, and living a monotonous routine?
To experience true joy in life you need to be fully present in the moment. If you are too concerned about the future you’ll be anxious. If you are too much into the past you will be dissatisfied with yourself.
The key is in the stillness which comes from living in the moment, know who you actually are, and practicing your ‘self’. Yes, you need to practice being who you really are, not what this world thinks or expects you to be.
Here are 15 things you need to do to live in the moment:
1. Be naked with your emotions
Knowing you need healing is the first step in your journey towards a better you. A better you is a covenant to a better life; a life where you feel fulfilled, at peace, and happy in what you have. A lot of my emotions never came to the surface because of my constant denial of them. People called me aggressive and I rejected them because they did not know what I was going through. For me, if it was working, it was fine. I was on my own for a long time in my life. It wasn’t until I had my first child that I decided to seek help.
At the lowest point in my life, I realized my anger, my trauma, and gaps in my personality that needed healing. That’s when I decided to go to Yoga. There on the mat, for the first time in my life, I felt what it was like being naked with my emotions.
2 Really go deep within yourself
When I came face to face with my emotions it was time to explore myself. I went into all my corners and crevices to look deeper into myself. All the noise and chatter I was ignoring for all these years came up.
That’s how I knew where I am going to put effort to work out my life.
3. Look for internal peace and stillness
The journey towards being your true authentic self can be rough but it’s all worthwhile in the end. You have to feel your emotions, experience yourself, and be still in the moment.
When you have kids it’s hard to squeeze out a lot of time for yourself. But you need to have an outlet for yourself. For me, it was that 1 hour class of yoga. It was all I truly had for myself. Therefore, in this hour I allowed myself to be honest, accept me as I was, and slowly and gradually this process gave me the calm and still I was looking for.
For you, it can be anything, reading, writing, parks, mountains, beach, anything.
4. Be open-minded
When you are introduced to yourself, the side you didn’t know existed, it required you to have an open mind to accept yourself. We are living lives on auto-pilot.
Being open-minded about yourself will allow you to change and face yourself.
5. Listen to the chatter
A lot of us live with a lot of noise inside us. That chatter is not meaningless. It’s actually what’s really bothering you. When you rest your mind, body, and soul to think of nothing, this chatter is what will come up. Take notes. This is where you will find your answers.
6. Detachment helps
A very taxing and challenging part of the healing process is detaching yourself from people who you love. You can’t be with them because they make your process difficult. These can be members of your family or your close friends.
Leaving people behind is hard but you got to tell your self that ‘I can do this.’ Be willing and open-minded about making yourself a priority. Remember, the decision to be happy is up to you. You do not get there overnight but every step you take will put some weight off you.
7. Be fine with a smaller circle
While you will be leaving some people behind in life, in the process of your healing and living in the moment, some people will choose to leave you behind. This process doesn’t necessarily have to be hard, in fact, sometimes it’s very smooth.
Over time people realize you are not for them and they are not for you. It’s okay. Let them dwell on their path while you stick to yours. Sometimes your family members can’t understand your struggle and your journey. Let them go.
People drop when you don’t mesh with them anymore. You have to be okay with doing it on your own, without a big support group, sometimes even solo.
8. Be consistent
As I already mentioned, nothing will come to you overnight. These efforts show results over the course of years. But does that mean you give up and continue living the life you are living?
You need to answer this question for yourself. If your life was actually worth living and you were happy doing so, you won’t be here reading this piece of article in the first place.
The devil is always active. Your mind will shower you with questions like who are you and why do you think you can do it all on your own? Be prepared with strong answers.
9. Imagine the life you love to live
You manifest what you attract. You attract what you think. When I was a small girl I used to imagine myself what I wanted to be when I grew up. A lot of us do that as kids but a many of us stop as we grow older. I never stopped.
For a long time in my life, I was bound by my circumstances. I did not have the liberty to be on my own then but that didn’t stop me from living my life. I used to imagine what I want to be. I even imagined the type of house, the type of income, family and kids. Fast forward years later I am living that life.
I used to imagine the beach and I could actually feel the splashes of waves, the breeze, and the smell of wet sand. I used to breathe in and out 6 times to feel relaxed. I can’t tell the difference between actually being there or imagining all this.
10. Forgiveness is liberating
Forgiveness drives you into the memory lane of the past that you don’t want to visit. For your own sake, forgive yourself for your mistakes, forgive the decisions you took in the past, forgive the people who did you wrong. Just move on a little lighter.
More on how and why you should forgive:
11. Love yourself wholeheartedly
Love yourself, be there for yourself and allow yourself to embrace your imperfections. If you are not perfect, no one else out there is. Doesn’t that fact leave a huge question mark on the comparison itself?
Your journey is for you and no one could live this life better than you.
12. Believe in yourself
Loving yourself is incomplete without the belief. You need to believe in your abilities. You can change your life. You can live better than this. You can clear the clutter. You can improve, grow and heal.
13. Have the power for a ‘positive no’
Set healthy boundaries in your life. I’ve seen a lot of amazing people in my life fail at things because they don’t set healthy boundaries. Learn the art of saying no. There is power in a ‘positive no’. Keep that for yourself. It helps you live and enjoy life better.
14. Start small but with a big plan for future
You don’t have to win any race. You don’t have to clear the mess of 20 years in a day. Always start small but have big plans for the future. Plan well to execute well and start seeing results sooner than you can imagine.
15. Affirm and manifest
If anything helps in staying motivated in your healing process and in living in the moment, it’s affirming and reaffirming what you want to believe in. Don’t just say you are enough, feel it, experience it, believe in it. Only then can you expect to see it manifesting.
Remember, you can love yourself amidst all the shame and guilt you’ve gathered around yourself. Don’t allow yourself to be trapped. Remove the people who don’t fit your equation anymore. Be okay with people not liking you.
Someone not liking you has nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with them.
When you can’t escape people, find something that brings you joy. Consistently go towards it. Allow yourself to enjoy life.
Be mindful of your energy. Whatever is around you can get inside you. Try to create a positive, happy, and healing aura around yourself. Have something childlike in life that brings you serenity or drives you down to your euphoria.
Have a burning desire to be a thriver from a survivor. Use passion to light your spirit and fly high girl, because you can.
We live in a screen-obsessed world where being an authentic self can be a little risky. We are just trying to be accepted and liked by the society we live in. The images we provide on our social media depicts who we want to be instead of reflecting who we truly are.
So the question here is how do we take this mask off and start living the life of authenticity? First, we need to understand what being authentic means. It means that you act in a way that shows your true self and feelings. Instead of just showing a particular side of yours to people you show them the real genuine you.
Overcoming inauthenticity feels hard because we were brought up in a way by our parents, teachers, and society which taught us to fit in so instead of being authentic selves we became adaptive selves. To reclaim our authenticity we need to discover our authentic selves. We need to know who we really are. Here are seven ways which help you to be authentic to yourself:
Observing yourself
Observe yourself objectively the way you observe a fly on the wall. Observe yourself, how you react under pressure, how it takes challenges, or what he believes. Then ask yourself are these emotions authentic? Do you really felt that way? Identify which response was authentic and which was adaptive. By identifying the difference you will begin to notice the falseness and dig the truthiness.
Dialogue between Adaptive and Authentic Self
Have a discussion between your Adaptive and Authentic self. It can be done by practicing meditation or any other thought exercise. Ask yourself a question mentally and see how both responses differ from each other. Listen patiently and try comprehending these responses.
Try understanding both sides for instance our adaptive self may focus on not being hurt due to something that happened in our past and our authentic self is afraid of rejection. In this exercise try figuring out the reasons behind such responses as it will help you understand why you act the way you do so you can decide whether you want to act differently or not.
Practicing Self-love
One of the most important steps towards being an authentic self is loving yourself and accepting your true self. Set aside some time for yourself every day, take deep breaths and feel relaxed. Appreciate yourself and stop being too hard on yourself.
Courage to face your fears
Develop courage so you can face your fears. Our authentic self might have fears, anger, and sadness. It can be possible that when our authentic self was hurt as when our adaptive-self took over. We need to have the courage to explore ourselves and to know what we are hiding deep inside not only from the world but from ourselves.
We courageously need to explore the truth and the reason which made us the way we are today. Accepting and letting go of such fears and getting rid of our buried emotions is what brings us close to our authentic self.
Ask yourself what you truly believe
Ask yourself what you truly believe in, what are your beliefs about yourself. One of the best ways to do this by writing it down. Ask a question and write your belief down it can be anything like nobody loves me, I am ugly, I am fat, or I am not good enough.
Now next step is to identify the reason which developed such belief, who gave it to you, and why you are still holding on to it. The next step is to create positive alternatives to such negative beliefs such as no I am good enough and then see do these beliefs represent the authentic you.
Identifying Discrepancies
Identify the discrepancy between your actions and your beliefs. If you make a sexist, racist, or any other hurtful remark ask yourself is that what you really believe or is it just because someone else taught this to you. If you acknowledge what is actually true for you then you can live a life in which you can be authentic to yourself.
Letting go of beliefs and patterns that do not serve you
When you come across an emotion that you feel is just not you try letting it go. According to researches visualization is a good tool for it. Imagine the belief or emotion in a bubble and let it rise until it disappears. You can also write it on a paper and then cross it, crumble the paper and just throw it away.
Read more: 5 ways to stand up for yourself
We need to recognize the fact that developing authenticity takes time. The process of examining ourselves is a lifelong process as we are always evolving as human beings so it takes time to know the real you. It takes time to release the beliefs and behaviors that we believe no longer serve us but it does not mean that we can’t do it. With some effort, we can find ourselves aligned with our true selves.
Another important thing is to maintain our authenticity and we can do that by simply practicing some habits in our daily life such as the habit of speaking the truth, making decisions and statements consciously, and continuously monitoring ourselves. If you want to progress you need a growth mindset which helps you learn from past experiences and a willingness to strive to improve oneself. This may sound like a long journey but trust me it is worth it!
Read More:
15 warning signs you have abandonment issues
5 Ways to Stand Up for Yourself
My 6 tried and true steps to Forgive and free yourself from all the burden
