Choosing Happiness while Ditching the Facade

Mom, Physical Therapist, Healer, Daughter, Sister, Friend, Woman, Ex-Wife, Ex-Girlfriend, Employee, Student, Blogger, Breather, Investor, Borrower, Tenant, Driver, Consumer, etc, etc, etc.

We can have so many roles that at times we lose site of who we truly are. Each of us can have multiple labels that come with different and sometimes complicated and conflicting expectations. Sometimes these roles come to define our identity and then we lose ourselves in living up to unrealistic expectations. Why do we do this? To meet the expectations of others, living and not, and some of these expectations are often only in our minds.

In allowing these identities to define us, we lose personal freedom while we gain a false-sense of security. We then find ourselves needing to defend this false sense of self, less someone begins to see the cracks in the walls or the foundation. Separation from others deepens as we lose ourselves to the facade – to the mask – of who we want the world to see. We become trapped in our own self-created prisons; the place we created to protect ourselves now keeps us from true experiences.

In this place we avoid following our hearts’ desires and instead we find ourselves stuck on the paths we believe we’re supposed to follow. How does this serve us? We believe that by following the preset path that we will be more safe, that our survival will be more properly preserved. Yet on the inside we’re dying from misery of living below our unique abilities.

Each of us is here for a unique purpose. When we cage ourselves, we are much like the lion in the zoo whose pride (literally and figuratively) is taken away. He is unable to follow his instincts and roam as he may. Instead he treads the same paths, dreaming of running across open savanna’s. (what is your heart’s dream?) Unlike the caged lion, we can choose differently. We can choose to break free of the false identities, the roles in which we play.

So when will you choose happiness, breaking free of the false-identities? When will you choose to follow the whispering of your heart, your soul unleashed?

What I’m talking about here is happiness without condition. What happens in our lives can shape us or break us. Even the heartaches and struggles are here so that we can choose our values, our path, our perspectives. Strength is built by doing and by choosing to “level up” and be our greatest selves. When we place conditions on our love, on our happiness, both cease to exist.

Namaste

If not now, then when? When will you listen to the whisperings of a soul ready to be unleashed?