As I was swimming and letting go of my overthinking mind I was contemplating how unique each of us is. Have you looked at your fingerprints this morning? They are uniquely yours and no other human being will ever have them. In a culture where we are taught to put a filter on everything we are pulled apart from our essence. The reality is that we all wake up with dragon breath, that a pimple or two always appears when we have to go on a romantic date and that we're not showering every time when we should. If you dare to scroll and binge consume social media you will witness the pretty degradation of the human form: I strive to find natural faces, people who don't waste time with make-up and filters because they have enough confidence to put themselves out there as they are and show that hey...we have wrinkles and that's okay.
Being yourself means discovering what your quirks are and be willing to embrace them. The very thing that someone said is annoying about you might be the very thing that makes someone fall in love with you. In the pursuit for the love of others we lose love for ourselves and this should not be the new norm. First you should love God or however you choose to call the higher power. Then you should love and accept yourself. The rest is a bonus that the world might decide or not to give to you.
Being yourself means a process of acceptance. I often thought that a rejection tells something about me when the truth is that rejection has nothing to do with me. It tells more about the other person and the reasons should not interest you. People can have a very hard time letting go to what could have been or to what that person could have become. But that is not acceptance or love. Once you shed your projections of what you should be you can begin to accept others. If this can happen 30 to 50% of the times you're on the right path. I believe that the majority of us are on an ongoing journey to self acceptance all of our lives. Babies accept themselves fully. They have no prejudice about not putting their toes in their mouth. As we grow up we are told numerous stifling paradigms in which we tend to believe: you need to look like this if you want to be liked, you need a certain car if you want to be around certain people, you should have this job and this degree if you want respect and so on, your natural smell sucks so you should always cover it with expensive perfume. The path to self acceptance has to be forced by you in this society by not adhering to what the majority does and believes. You need to be the rainbow sheep, the crazy one who dares to say bye bye to the flock and jump around beyond the confines of the shepherd's fields.
Being yourself is about embracing your entire rainbow, even if it seems way too much colour to handle. God hasn't placed you on this Earth to be a monochrome boring sheep. You have an entire rainbow in you, dare to bring it forth!