5 Steps To Freedom

You really have to look inside yourself and find your own inner strength and say, "I'm proud of what I am and who I am, and I'm just going to be myself."

Mariah Carey
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Hello Sandy
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Knowing yourself is often a hard task and quite tricky, particularly if you've been surrounded by people who have pummeled into a pulp your self respect by constant criticism and harping on your faults. On the other hand it can also be difficult for one has been constantly and inappropriate approved of. In either case self knowledge is one of life's direst necessities.

Mariah Carey has spelled out 5 rules for the journey of self discovery and personal self approval.

1. Look inside yourself. We can spend a lot of time, a lot of wasted time, worrying about how we appear to others. The effort involved in that expenditure is strong enough to take our thoughts completely away from how we do look to others and how we appear to ourselves. When you look in the mirror what do you see? Is my make up on right? Is my beard trimmed? How does my hair look? Should I wear this tie? Next time look at yourself in the eyes and work to see the person behind the hair and the tie. That person is there, waiting to be your friend.

2. Find your inner strength. I recently had a conversatin with a woman who was trying to research the causes for everything that she felt was wrong with her. I suggested that instead she should look into the reasons behind everything she felt was right about her and develop those. We can waste more time and effort facing our faults day after day. You're not perfect? So what? It's the good things, the right things, that keep us going.

3. Be proud of what your are. What are you, a scientist, an artist, a teacher, an athlete, a builder, a cleaner, a mother, a husband, an astronaut? Whatever it is you have a right to be proud of your place in the world. Shakespeare wrote, "There's place and means for every man alive." Take your place and perform your tasks with self satisfaction and pay no attention to the negatives.

4. Be proud of who you are. Now that you have become acquainted with the being in the mirror, groomed yourself to your own specifications and learned to proudly take your place and perform with pride your functions in the world, you realize that you are more than the face, more than the clothes and bigger than the job, no matter what it is. You are a remarkable creature, a human being, like no other on Earth. As time goes by you discover more and more about yourself. Ignore the regrets. John Cage said "We need not destroy the past. It is gone." Today is the day to live, and the future is the day to think about. The more goodness, success, fulfillment and joy you can find about yourself the more you have to be proud of.

5. Be yourself. In my unfortunate childhood I was the subject of resentment for being who I was. I learned to put up a front, a facade, in order to minimize the criticisms and scorn I was getting. There was no looking earnestly at myself in the mirror until years later. Succumbing to the world's opinions or even what you think those opinions might be robs you of the freedom to be yourself. Picking off of yourself all the false labels and cleaning yourself of the left over glue of a life of pretenses and avoidances is one of the healthiest things a person can do for themselves. Of all the freedoms we have a right to one of the mightiest is the freedom to be ourselves.

Thank you Marih

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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