A friend of mine recently said that she was saddened to realize that she feels she has gotten away from much of her authentic self, the person she was when she was younger, and the person she truly feels she is. She said she thinks this happened when she allowed her life to center around social norms, expectations, and perhaps pleasing others.

If you stop and think about it, hasn’t everyone lost sight of their authentic self at least once in their lives? I know when I lost grip of mine. It was like a rope slipping through my fingers for years in an unhappy marriage. At times the rope actually flew out of my hands and I scrambled to find it again. But only when I left the situation did I pull hard on my rope and bring myself back to the beginning: Who I Am. And damn if that didn’t that feel good and right.

What sort of influences or situations make us lose or weaken our authentic selves? Is identifying that it’s happening the first step to getting back to our truth? I think it is. If you recognize that you are not being true to your being, then that can only be good for moving forward in the right direction. But sometimes I think people don’t know it has happened, because they are so deep down in their reality that they maybe don’t even remember who they are. But I don’t think anyone can tell you . . . I believe it’s something you must see on your own, want to change, and then take steps to return to your base.