Loss of self
I feel this deep inside me. There was a point in my life, I followed my gut, moved towards what made me light up and feel good and happy. Then fear, judgment and a wrong perception slowly lead me away, away from myself.
I feel like for most, if not the whole, of my life I’ve been trying to be more than I am. And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with growth, and expanding and learning, I can’t help but wonder who I was trying to be more for. I find myself questioning if the choices or paths I have taken in my life were for my own benefit, or if they were rather to please someone, to prove something (whether to myself or someone else), or to fit in and be accepted.
I know for certain there are things or rather decisions I have made that have lit me up and made me genuinely happy. But looking back I can see now how judgment, poor perceptions of myself, and most particularly fear have made me move away from those things in order to be kept in a perceived bubble of safety and predictability.
I find myself questioning a lot of my life: my likes and dislikes, interests, goals, and so on, and wonder if the things I think I want are actually the things I want. The lines between what feels right to me, and what is expected have been blurred to such an extent that I don’t know myself very well anymore. I wonder why it is so hard to just be, and not have to work at being anything other than just me.
So I find myself searching, or at least trusting myself more and more again. Letting go of judgment, from others, but mostly of myself.
And above everything facing the many fears that have been holding me back for so long.