In the early years of me stepping out of teenage, I usually always thought I had a great sense of understanding of who I was, what I needed to be and what I needed in general in my life. I always assumed I'd have my shit together, even when things were hitting south. But as and how I stepped into my late 20s, I figured I lost touch of who I was.
Blame the pandemic, if you will; but the sense of understanding of 'Myself' was becoming more and more blur. I did things that stunned me too, I thought of things that felt very very foreign to me and I would say things that I never really meant. The moral compass that I had was fluctuating at a very high scale that made me uncomfortable with who I was and scared of who I was becoming.
Here are some ways I was fighting my way out of lack of individuality, and wanting to create my own:
Some quality #MeTime
A lot of alone time usually has two outcomes, one is- you have a lot of time to introspect and question every fibre of your body. The other outcome is to really be comfortable with every cell of your body. More often than not, it's in your control what you want your mind to do. A lot of alone time only motivated me to be familiar with the darker sides of myself. Darker thoughts. The demons that I thought I never had.
Being crude honest with myself
We have an image of ourselves in our head, and we mostly try to live by that image. But there will be times that you'll do something that goes against the image - but will also be natural. How does that happen? The answer lies in how honest you are with yourself and how you can tackle difficult emotions about yourself, with yourself. You have to really be honest with yourself to actually understand why you do what you do. I was trying to be that. Did I lie as a defence mechanism? Did I knowingly ghosted them? Did I mean to be a bitch to that person? Without conveniently shifting the blame to someone else, I wanted to really sit with myself a lot more than before.
Write down your thoughts, especially the darkest and the most brutal ones
A journal, a notebook, a page and a pen; anything works as long as you want to really write down unfiltered thoughts for once. Writing helps you get clarity (that's what I am doing here). I normally only get clarity of thoughts and situations when I write about them, otherwise they are all a mess in my head. I often fail to understand what really is it that I want and am thinking, if I do not write it down in bullet points. I also make sure I am writing down unfiltered thoughts about what I am thinking. It's my mind after all, I can't just not listen to it and denounce it.
Exploring my hobbies and interests
We all have certain set of skills and talents that we often fail to acknowledge in the rat race that we are in. Corporate, college, peer pressure, family pressure and then the inflation - we sideline our hobbies and talents. But that's exactly where our individuality exists. When I explore my skills and talents, I am actually more in touch with myself than the talent in itself. It also helps me understand the weak points, the strengths and the underlying triggers that I have. When I am figuring out something that involves me, I am exploring my mind as well.
Tracking how often my actions match my words
For a month or more, I make it a point to match my actions with my words. I have to trust my words, myself and my actions to be able to carve my own individuality around it. If I fail to trust myself, because my actions don't match my words - I am only becoming my own enemy. So I keep a track of that and try really hard to match my words. So this also means, I have to weigh in my words. I can't just say anything for the sake of saying.
Be mindful of my need for others' validation and approval
We are all creatures that need validation that we are all right, on the right track and doing just fine. But when we depend too much on others' approval and validation, we somehow become puppets. At least that's true for me. I become a puppet when I need an approval for every single thing I do, am and think - from others'. I try to be very very mindful about how often I am needing this validation- and I try to regulate that need. Be okay with taking your decisions without another persons' nod, be okay with feeling your emotions without needing validation that what you are feeling is right.
"I'll love myself when they love me" is a downhill path
The idea that we are allowed to love ourselves only when someone else loves is, is a flawed concept. It's less spoken of, but it exists. I try to make peace with the fact that I am supposed to love myself more fiercely when there is nobody else loving me. When I depend too much on someone else's love and affection, I am creating a shadow of myself- hence losing the real me.
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