Life Made Me Be Me
My life positioned me from birth—being black and white, Canadian and American, and adopted—to have to sculpt and design my own identity.
That “insider/outsider” status was only amplified when I wound up navigating being an Ivy League professor who had a buzzing intuitive consulting/life coaching practice on the side, serving hundreds—and eventually thousands—of clients scattered across the globe.
I wasn’t born into a lane I could claim. I wasn’t born into a box that told me who to be. It created bafflement and confusion within me, yes, especially since others seemed to know who they were, identity-wise.
But it also created freedom and flexibility, an option to exercise a greater degree of self-fashioning than most people avail themselves of. And yet the truth is, it required a good measure of courage and strength to blaze this trail of mine.
In a way, I don’t think I’m so different from anyone else, in that a key assignment on my life path has been to master the art of being me. For that is a call to action shared by everybody. It’s just that for me, life placed that assignment in the foreground. Life made it mandatory. Life made it the crux of things, not “extra credit.”
There was no category for me to hide behind, as if hunkered down behind a sand bag. My outside-the-boxness was on prominent display. Visibly seen. A subtle difference, to be sure. Not a BLAZING difference. Not an absolute difference. Mine was a difference in degree, occurring on a spectrum. And yet, there was no denying it… in my little world, I was palpably different.
My insider/outsider positioning compelled me to realize early on that most people haven’t even thought to examine—much less to question—the boxes they’ve been handed to live within. People’s identities wind up taken as a given. For most, a presupposition sets in—an assumption—about who they are.
Meanwhile, life placed me in such a position that I had to give A LOT of thought—over my 5+ decades of life—to the boxes we humans have been handed to live within.
It’s been easier said than done to blaze my own trail… because we all want to fit in… to belong… to be understood… embraced… and loved for exactly who we are. It hasn’t been a smooth path… or a glamorous path… or one to be romanticized. That’s for sure.
But what’s the point of belonging and fitting in if we’re not being who we truly are? Do we really want acceptance and accolades and applause for being a version of ourselves that’s not in integrity? A version of ourselves that is toe-ing a line and subtly contorting, in order to appear more socially acceptable?
Do we want respect for being a version of ourselves that’s neither walking our talk nor living our deepest values? Do we want validation for being a version of ourself that’s pandering and pretzeling?
Billions of us are subtly betraying our *god-given* divine design… in order to fit ourselves into *man’s* design. We become like packaged food instead of food from a garden. We become processed rather than organic.
The lies we tell ourselves become the lies we see in the world. The lies we tell ourselves—as we angle to be seen as someone we’re not or to NOT be seen as someone we are—become replicated on a collective scale.
Our endless angling becomes mirrored for us in the culture, via the various ways people are being mislead, misinformed, and manipulated en masse.
We live, collectively, in a sea of endless spin. And yet that very spin is occurring WITHIN ourselves as well. As within, so without. As above, so below.
Authenticity is the solution. Discovering and reclaiming who we actually are is the antidote to the endless angling and spinning.
Authenticity is as a neutral gear of the self. It’s being centered. It’s dwelling as a default in the bullseye of the invisible dartboard within us.
As our true selves, there’s nothing to lose and nothing to prove. There’s no smoke and mirrors, there’s no performing, no concealing, no spreading of outright falsehoods. We no longer lived mired in a web of lies. We choose Truth. And the truth sets us free.
Reclaiming our authenticity doubles as a reclaiming of our truth. Honoring our authenticity doubles as a letting go. It becomes as a soft sinking into our True Place. Living authentically becomes a “death” of the false self. It's a bringing forth and a showcasing of the unique medicine that lies within us.
Our authenticity is a blessing upon everyone we encounter. It's a beaming unto others an unbridled, unadulterated essence of who we truly are.
Better still, residing in the seat of our own authenticity becomes a powerful permission slip to others. Our very presence will inspire everyone who’s lives touch ours to live as their authentic selves.
And ultimately, one person at a time, we will find ourselves living in a world that values authenticity… a world that places high priority on the Truth.
Love + Oneness,
Naomi
