Simply Me

Just like you, I was born perfect, satisfied and content with an exceptional esteem of Self. And then they (all the adults, the media, the church) confused me with their opinions and examples of what they believed to be right, best and real for me. They meant well as they passed on the ideals taught by the other well-meaning people who had influenced and shaped their identities; but I was really being shown how to be just as lost and confused as they were.

Convinced that an extraordinary amount of personal growth and refinement were what those that have mastered the art of the human experience had achieved, I began my adult life feeling inadequate for not really wanting to grow and refine. I simply wanted to Be. I wanted to allow the essence of my instincts, affinities and quirks guide and inform my life’s direction. I never wanted to alter my Self to gain acceptance. My instincts were correct all along, but I had to ignore them for about 15 years to appreciate the righteousness of what I’d always known was right for me.

In that 15 years I began defining what was broken about me so that I could fix myself. The only way to pull this off was to compare myself to other people — how else could I know what was wrong?  The more I fixed myself, the further I drifted from the Truth of who I am and the more empty and inadequate I felt. I became a shell of insecurity, just waiting for the next valued opinion, trend or opportunity to define my shell of a self.

I now know I wasn’t alone. Most of us don’t truly know who we are. We look, sound, act just as we’ve been taught. We give in to the majority’s point of view and blend in with the World by sticking with people who think just like us. We allow ourselves to be consumed by material should bes by becoming slaves to jobs we hate and debt we can’t repay – at the expense of our peace of mind. We let rigid views of what we think is fair, unfair, right and wrong disconnect us from the richness that’s popping off in the world around us. Only a small minority of us has a World view – we are, for the most part, blindly stumbling around within the little bubbles of life we’ve elected to confine ourselves in.

Life in the bubble became safe and flat, hazy and predictable, frustrating and stifling and sometimes plain crazy. I couldn’t breathe in the fake little world I’d created. Thankfully the stench of the bullshit within my self-perceived bubble finally became intolerable.

“Enough!”, became my mantra. I screamed it loud enough to burst that funky bubble and then found myself sitting out in the open with the remnants of my life’s bullshit stuck all over me. Bit by bit, I had to identify the origins of each piece of crap and release it. I occasionally had to hand deliver clumps of bullshit back to it’s rightful owner (I wrapped it up with a thank you card to lessen the blow). As I cleaned myself up, I had to find my own way back to my perfection – what’s perfect for me individually.

The journey back to the beginning has been 360 degrees of lessons learned, false hopes and curious fits and starts. But I’m back in my own skin, standing in my own shoes and digging the view from the summit that sits atop the nuggets of wisdom collected each time I dropped everyone else’s ideas of whom I should be and stayed true to my Self.

A genuine life outside the bubble requires courage, strength, openness, complete honesty, perseverance, among many other admirable traits. You have to be willing to go against the grain and walk in integrity when your Truth is questioned – and the more content you are, the more the who of You will be questioned by the bubble dwellers.

I’m not claiming to be an expert on how you should live your life – I’ll leave that up to you. I don’t have a 12 step process or a degree in psychology. I don’t know any more than you do – I’m willing to say what most of us have been trained to ignore. The words I write represent the ideals your bullshit keeps hidden – I’m one of those folks who are moved to drag the Truth out here for you to acknowledge – if you wish.

Setting your life up to simply do you is not so simple. The simplicity comes once you get it – once you’re able to stand tall in a life that supports You. A full circle later, I celebrate the simplicity of living who I am.

I’m most at peace when my particular brand of wisdom and insight flips a switch, shines a light or helps burst the bubble for someone else – this is what moves me to write, to coach and to blog here.

Enough about me… Simply do you.

Kimberly Virdure-King