#170: Being myself in the world
I’ve always wanted to feel able to be myself in this world.
I’ve wanted to be able to be me, all of me, with the people I’m around. No faking it, no blagging it, no front. Just me.
Recently, I’ve been feeling like I’ve gotten closer to that than I ever have before. Who knows how long it may last, as I don’t think it’s something you achieve, but I feel good. I feel like me and I like it.
It’s been a long road to get close to this feeling and for this moment, I feel like I’m me in this world. I feel accepted, I feel like I belong and I feel quite happy.
When I was struggling about 5 years ago, I really didn’t know much about myself, about who I am, my past, my story, what I liked, what I valued, what I wanted. I felt empty and lost.
I had an existential crisis, I felt deeply anxious and was having panic attacks.
This provoked a long period of self-development and healing, where initially I spent a lot of time becoming aware of myself and the world around me.
I called it opening up. I was going inwards, I was reflecting a lot and I received Coaching and Therapy for the first time.
I’d felt like I’d had a long period where I couldn’t be myself and I was only being a slither or a shadow of me in the world.
The experience of connection I felt through writing, telling my story and coaching was exhilarating - it was like a drug - I was high.
I uncovered all these different parts of me and I found all of these new interests; a romantic side, a creative side, an emotional side. I found new hobbies and a new purpose.
Inadvertently though, I swung very far away from how I used to behave. The parts of me that had long been dormant, they now became most prevalent, so prevalent in fact that I ended up repressing the parts of me that had previously been most prevalent.
The lad that was always up for a big one Friday and Saturday was almost completely replaced by the conscious yoga hippy person.
The experience was overly positive, yet I ended up rejecting other parts of me, again.
My pendulum swung so far the other way into a whole new part of me, leaving behind my “old self” for my “new self” - it was like the shedding of a skin.
Yet, I couldn’t just say goodbye to the “old me” - I couldn’t kill that part of me forever, so instead I repressed it, which just repeated the same pattern but with different parts. Before I might have been repressing a creative part or emotional part of me, now I was repressing something else, a fun or spontaneous or silly part let’s say.
Now, I was judging and blaming the old James for causing me my mental health issues, and over-indexing only on all the new stuff in my life, trying to move on and forget about the rest.
This was like the first step for me. Opening up and awakening to parts of me that were unconscious or had been unattended for a long time.
Then the second evolution was revisiting all of me and integrating everything into one. So rather than seeing any parts of me as bad or wrong, or blaming them, I focused on integrating all the different bits of me together. The old and the new.
A good example of this is going on nights out and drinking heavily. In the early years of my mental health journey I saw this is as bad, I judged that part of me and rejected it. Now, whilst my relationship and interest in going on nights out has changed, I have worked on re-integrating that into my life, so rather than one or the other, good or bad. There’s just a oneness to it. There’s the part of me that loves to have a laugh and be silly, there’s the part of me that wants to wake up feeling good so I can go on a walk in the morning. Now they’re both there and they’re talking to each other, there’s less conflict. There’s just me, all of me, conscious of all the different bits.
Finally, it’s all there as one put back together again and I think I thought I’d have completed life at that point. I thought 3 years of coaching and therapy, exploring all the different parts of me and that would do the trick, but of course not.
Even with a good level of awareness, plenty of reflection and good practices, that doesn’t control Life. That doesn’t control a pandemic or a loss, or other environmental events.
Now it’s about how I respond to my environment and noticing that. Being aware of that and making conscious choices and being aware that I’m responsible for the consequences.
This reflection is relevant for me, as I begin to reintegrate into the world in groups and at social occasions. Groups can bring out a lot and I have often struggled to be myself in groups. It comes out in little things, saying no to a drink, choosing to go home early, disagreeing with something or sharing something I’m passionate about and standing by it.
The problem with a lot of the self-development work can be that we do it alone or in private and it feels great. Then we go to a family party and it’s all undone, because it’s easy to “be yourself” on your own. It’s harder around people in new environments.
I’m feeling more able to be myself in groups and around others than I ever have, which I’m really pleased and proud of because I feel good and it’s been a long road to get here.
Really, isn’t being able to be ourselves authentically in the world what we’re all trying to get to? I think it is to be honest and if I’ve found that for a moment or a period I’m going to savour it.
Cheers,
James x
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What I'm up to
I'm reading Kim by Rudyard Kipling
I wrote my first guest piece with Sifted! "Founders, you don't have to be CEO" - I'd love to write more for publications.
I am obsessed with this Podcast; Armchair Expert. The episode with George Saunders I loved, they talk about Ayn Rand and The Fountainhead which i found fascinating and resonated with me a lot
I'm looking for places to volunteer in London, we have volunteering days to use as. a Sanctus Team - i'm thinking foodbank but open to suggestions. It's actually quite hard to find places to volunteer at.
Personal Website with writing and other bits -
Sanctus OnlIne Gym with daily journaling classes - https://sanctus.community/welcome
Sanctus website with more about Coaching in the workplace -
Who am I?
I'm the Founder of a Mental Health mission called Sanctus and I'm the Author of a Book; "Mental Health at Work" that's published by Penguin and out in October.
I write this newsletter about mental health, startups and my life, my journey and 8,000 people like it enough to still be here. I try to respond to everyone who emails me, it just takes me a while.