*To Thine Own Self Be True*

To Thine Own Self Be True: this phrase is so important to me that I have it tattooed on my back. However sometimes I literally, and figuratively forget it's there. 

I picked up this meditation book tonight to read that my dear friend Nancy gave me when I was living in Chattanooga, TN. I have so much going on in my life that I sometimes forget to stop and take care of myself, and I felt like after working through some recent challenges it was time to get back to my insightful self. I'm sure I will be talking about the book a lot.

No matter what date in the book I turn to (there is a meditation for every day of the year), it never fails to speak to how I'm feeling or something I have been dealing with. But when I turned to November 8th, I read the words, "To thine own self be true". It was pretty powerful. 


It's so easy to get caught up in the needs and feelings of others, it says. After everything I have been through in my life, that is something I can do without even thinking about it. But why is it that we find it so hard to listen to ourselves? To know and carry through with what know we need? Why don't we listen to our feelings, what they are telling us, and where they want us to go? Trusting instincts is for me, a very difficult thing to do, even though I do it better now than I ever have before. Most of the time I don't think they make sense or are just trying to confuse me. A lot of the time my instincts don't match up with what I want to tell myself I want or need for myself. Emphasis on what I want to tell myself to think or believe. When it comes to other people, and definitely relationships, my instincts and my thoughts carry out a bloody war with one another. It's an internal power struggle between the two, and I am right in the middle. When my instincts kick in and alert me that something is wrong, I immediately shift in to rationalization mode as to make those instincts go away. I try to talk them down. Give me more time please! I'm not ready for them! 


So honestly have my instincts always been right? No. But they were right most of the time. And I was true to myself. I could spend forever trying to justify doing things for others, pleasing and catering to their needs. But what about mine? When we let go of the confusion and honor and respect who we are, there is no way we can look back on a decision and say that it was wrong. It seems better consider a decision to be wrong based on following our instincts than to be wrong doing what we thought was best for ourselves based on the influence of others. If they love us and value our friendship, they will understand in the moment we displeased them. They will know what its like to follow our own truth. To thine own self be true: it's really that simple, and yet so powerful.