Be True to Yourself and Your Life Will be True for You

Did you miss the first installment? Just click here to catch up with A: Awareness. And now on to B: Be true to yourself.

If you are like me, we mold ourselves to any situation so we can be accepted and fit in. For example, as a former Navy Nurse, I really had to mold myself to military discipline and behave in a very subservient manner as a lower ranking officer. It was yes maam, yes sir, and keep your mouth shut unless spoken to. Believe me that was not being true to whom I truly was as a person but I played the role I needed to play to survive.

At one point I defied the system and married an enlisted man (there is an unwritten rule in the military that you don't do that) and of course did not get promoted in rank because of this. So by falling in love with a decent human being, whom I have been married to for 48 years was a bad thing to do in the eyes of the military, in my eyes it was the right thing to do. In that case being true to myself got me into some trouble. (but it was worth it)

My next career move as a student health service director at a small Catholic college was another test for me. I did not fully appreciate how sensitive the college was about the issue of birth control. The health educator in me was only interested in helping young women prevent pregnancy so I scheduled a class on birth control and canvassed the campus with posters promoting the class. Within minutes, I was called in and told "we don't talk about birth control, we talk about family planning". Whoops! As a non-Catholic I goofed. So internally I was struggling about just telling it like it is, but externally I had to accept this and took all my signs down, replacing them with the correct terminology. Lesson learned, and one more opportunity to mold myself to fit in, rather than being true to myself.

As a health educator in a hospital I worked with a stellar team of professionals but we were not always being true to ourselves. Our boss, who had a strong imposing personality often caused us to shut down and not be as honest about things as we wanted to be for fear of reprisal. On the other hand, he was very willing to let each of us control our own destiny with our work which allowed me to fully express who I was as a professional. So the dilemma was on one hand he stifled me personally but on the other hand I had free reign over my professional work. And so I adapted once more but wasn't totally honest when I communicated with him.

When I finally stopped working for a boss and started working for myself, I was able to release the role-playing I had been doing all my career and was able to be the real ME! What a great feeling to be able to tell the truth in any situation and not have to worry about the consequences of being "too honest". I will admit I still carry around some residual about holding back my true feelings and still do that to a degree, but most of the time I am operating from my true self and learning to get comfortable with that.

So as you embark on a new role for yourself in retirement, what will that look like for you? Do you still carry that old baggage of not speaking your mind, of not presenting yourself as you truly are, of holding yourself back from fully expressing your true gifts to the world? Isn't it time to just let go of the past and embrace the new and improved YOU who is fully expressing who you are - and loving it!

Here is what some wise people have said about living your truth:

Gandhi: "Be congruent. Be authentic. Be your true self."

E.E. Cummings: "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."

Shakespeare: "This above all: to thine own self be true."

So how have you been with being true to yourself? And if you are still playing the role to meet other's expectations, what would it be like if you stopped doing that?

Would love to hear your comments. Be well on your path to retirement. Carol