Member-only story
I’m Not Sure How to Be Who I Am
Welcome to my mid-life existential crisis.
I have worked very hard to grow into the person that I am. To be okay with my thoughts, feelings, and ideas. I dig me. The hard part? I don’t know what that looks like outside of my body.
I have a tremendous admiration for people that are who they are on the outside in a way that allows you to truly immerse yourself in being with them. Their external expression of themselves completely represents their internal self.
Contrary to every intention I have to do so, I have hit mid-life with no idea how to express myself outside of my thoughts. I’m not happy about it.
Criticism falls hard on me. It doesn’t even have to be directed at me. I’m an empath. If I hear someone else criticized, I feel it. I keep it. I have lived a lot of my 45 years doing whatever I can to avoid criticism. I have walked the center of the road as much as possible. Lean too much to one side and someone is bound to be unhappy about it.
The result? A lack of sense of physical self. I don’t even know how to begin to fix it. I have the ideas but making them happen takes courage I haven’t mustered up yet.
