Reconnecting with My Authentic-Self
Can you live an entire life without ever knowing who you truly are? This is a question I’ve asked myself a few times this week. My life today looks absolutely nothing like my life last year, and last year’s looked nothing like my life before I got off medication in New York. I almost don’t recognize myself anymore, and living as an observer in my own life lately has been a trip to say the least. I attribute these radical positive shifts to the work I’ve done on myself, which I will explain.
In 2016, I was very ill. The symptoms of previously undiscovered trauma had been building up for over a decade and began to rear their ugly head as I tapered off of the 5 different medications I had been given to try to numb them out in a mental health misdiagnosis. I was so anxious every day to the point of experiencing deep cystic acne absolutely all over my face, which looked horrific. I was constantly late or calling out of work, too paralyzed to leave my apartment, and missed every single celebration of my friends and family including birthday parties and bridal showers. I was endlessly miserable and took up addictions masked as activities to numb my pain like online shopping, casual sex, and binge-watching YouTube.
After I got off of medication entirely at the start of 2017 and switched to a holistic health approach involving CBD, I changed pretty significantly. I was no longer miserable and emotionally disconnected, instead being deeply moved sporadically because of the peace I felt throughout my body. I felt things again, passion, motivation, drive to execute a purpose that had been lost for a decade. I laughed, and cried, and changed certain behaviors like not engaging in casual sex- I was too emotionally sensitive to handle it, not online shopping- I was too broke now, and calmly and happily leaving my apartment to engage with the world.
After I moved to Denver, I accepted a job in cannabis that I thought would be a dream but paid me a fraction of my worth and fostered a toxic working environment. I had such a low self worth that I stayed, despite these red flags- I was dead broke, under financial duress and in survival mode for a year of it, before winning my fight to bump my salary to a livable income. To put this in context, I was flying back to New York for one of my best friend’s weddings one day and hadn’t purchased a carryon ticket- I didn’t even have $60 in my account to purchase it at the gate so I was sent to to customer service where I cried publicly until they overrode it so I could make my flight.
Also, for the first time in my life since I was put on medication, I was interested in a romantic relationship. I started dating and focusing my attention on men and dating apps. Time after time, I would exclusively attract unavailable men- narcissists/sociopaths, men with their own unresolved trauma, men in relationships- that ended up wreaking havoc on my life and mental/emotional space.
This week, I worked at a job I only dreamed about driving across the country to work in cannabis in Denver, a job that took two years to manifest once I was ready for it. I took four dance classes in four days, including pole, hip-hop, and ballet, none of which I ever thought I’d bring myself to or even really had an interest in enough to go. I had a meeting with my writing coach and submitted the fifth chapter of my memoir, something I dreamed about before I even knew I had a story, still on medication in New York. I went on a photoshoot (with the ever-talented @nicotreeproductions), something I used to shutter at, having had an aversion to the spotlight and a deeply ingrained fear of shining. I haven’t been dating and instead have been focusing on myself, being intimate with and available to myself through my art and doing things that I love.
This week deviates so far from any week I’ve previously lived. So what happened? How can you live an entire life inauthentically and not even know it? I believe that this is exactly what trauma does, especially when it happens at an early age. We construct a “false self” to survive whatever situation we’re in, adopt characteristics so we are better able to be loved and behaviors that help us cope until eventually, the layers of our false self bury our “true self” in the shadows inside.
Since doing shadow work, delving into the unseen, painful parts of myself, feeling and healing them through writing and hypnosis (which I extrapolate on in my pole video post), my life has been more fulfilling than I ever thought possible. It is only when we can love ourselves wholly- not by “treating ourselves” to a dessert or new top, but by really feeling into, exploring and reconciling even the darkest and most painful, repressed parts of ourselves- are we able to shed the layers of our falsely constructed selves and live fully as the women and men we truly are. Here’s to making our dreams a reality. Feel free to DM me with any questions.
“The true opposite of depression is neither gaiety nor absence of pain, but vitality—the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings. It is part of the kaleidoscope of life that these feelings are not only happy, beautiful, or good but can reflect the entire range of human experience, including envy, jealousy, rage, disgust, greed, despair, and grief. But this freedom cannot be achieved if its childhood roots are cut off. Our access to the true self is possible only when we no longer have to be afraid of the intense emotional world of early childhood. Once we have experienced and become familiar with this world, it is no longer strange and threatening.”
This was originally featured in a March 23, 2019 post on Instagram at @themorganmay