I often hear people say “I just want to be able to be myself”…usually when they feel like someone is judging them. The truth is, I think, that what they REALLY want is to be able to do what they want and still get what they want — acceptance, success, an easy life.
As I work with clients, I find they usually have quite a gap between their “identity” — the person they want the world to see — and the “self”. Their work is often to learn to accept, to embrace, to fully express, the person that they really are.
Which means accepting the impact of their behavior, and the life that forms around who they are. It may not be the life they thought they wanted…or the life they were told they needed to achieve to be admired or approved of. But it’s probably the life they are supposed to have, the life for which they were given the exact gifts they needed.
So, to quote from a man who lived his own life — and lost it far too young