I fit no box. I am part introvert part extravert, part British part Italian, part northern part southern, part deeply peaceful part madly energised by all that is available in life. I want to travel and I want to settle I want to be loud and I want to be quiet.
For a long time I’ve had this idea in my head that for me to be fully ‘in charge’ of my life I need to be peaceful and chilled and relaxed all the time. And for some of the time I am peaceful and chilled and relaxed. But in other moments I’m energised, sometimes I have a million ideas, sometimes I feel like a greyhound desperate to go for a run to release tension and anxiety that builds so easily in my stomach and chest. Sometimes I can’t think of anything better than holding court at a party. And sometimes I just want to be on my own.
I am a rainbow of emotions.
But I find myself being less than self-compassionate sometimes when I’m not feeling chilled and relaxed and in control. I hear my gremlins talk about failure, they suggest being relaxed is the holy grail, and when I’m feeling anything but relaxed I’m not being ‘true to myself’. Ironic really, how can I ever actually feel relaxed when I’m contending with gremlin chatter?
Recently, through a brilliant coaching session with my coach and a lot of self reflection, I’ve realised being truly authentic or ‘true to myself’ is actually about embracing who I am in my entirety. I am a complex being, as we all are, and I now choose to embrace my intensity, my energy, my ‘madness’ and my peaceful side. I do not need to have all my shit together all of the time. Even if I did ‘have all my shit together’ how would I ever learn anything new?
Cultural messages would have us believe to be solid and steady is the ‘right’ way of being. Being up and down and everything in between is often looked upon as being ‘crazy’ or ‘all over the place’. I believe, to be up and down and everything in between is actually the way to truly feel alive, it’s the way to experience all that is available to us as human beings. Having that emotional range is something to be celebrated.
We are all complex beings. We are all colourful, emotionally varied, beautifully vulnerable human beings. And we all deserve to fully embrace ourselves as we are.
I leave you with this poem by Jack Kerouac:
‘The only people for me are the mad ones.
The ones who are mad to live.
Mad to talk.
Mad to be saved.
Desirous of everything at the same time.
The ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing.
But burn. Burn. Burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.’