Sometimes the most courageous thing you can do is dare to be yourself. Nobody can be more comfortable around you, than you are in your own skin.

To be around people pleasers, people uncomfortable with themselves is painful: like wind vanes in a storm they’re constantly shifting and changing based on what they *think* you want. Impossible to pin them down. Weird circular conversations where they’ve seemingly founded their entire perspective off of you, changing it as they realize they’ve mis-guessed what you thought.

And yet… I have realized in the past – am re-realizing now – that _I_ have a constant monologue of criticism inside my OWN head telling me I’m doing it wrong… I shouldn’t feel that way… I look stupid… other people are better / would do it better / feel better and that I ought to “do it the way they’d do it,” blah, blah, BLAH, BLAH, *BLAH*.

And, what’s worse than others not feeling any more comfortable around you than you feel in your own skin, it that it’s not even about them:  even more important than whether others are comfortable around you is whether you are comfortable around yourself.  And you can’t be comfortable with YOURSELF as long as you have a constant, criticizing voice JUDGING everything you do. 

Dare to Be Yourself Vulnerably

In the past I worked hard to come from my value of living vulnerably.  I worked so hard to just BE.  This is how I feel!?  Cool, this is how I feel.  It didn’t work out perfectly?  Cool, at least I took action.  YOU are embarrassed that I admitted something most humans do/are/think?  Cool, at least I honored MY humanness and the reality of how I did it/am/think.

“I can’t believe you actually said that out loud,” was what I often heard others tell me.  Not because it was offensive or for want of attention or strange… but because THEY had thought it a million times but never found the guts to admit it.

And yet for too long now I’ve been judging myself as if I shoulda been doing it differently all along.

Fuck it.

THIS is how I did it.

I’d do it differently now?  Cool.  I didn’t have that info, nor the knowledge of where things would be, then.

Others (SEEM) to think/feel differently?  Whatever.  What the fuck does that have to do with me?

You don’t “like” what I did or how I did it!?  Then you do it.  But as for me and my life, I’ma do it the way I do it because… me.

Dare to Let Go of Your Shame

At a deeper level it’s expressed by a denial of self around deeper “secrets.”

“If it makes you cringe to admit it,” I’d think about my realizations, “then I HAVE to say it out loud.”

If it makes you cringe to admit it, then you HAVE to say it out loud to destroy the power this secret has over you and live out loud.~ Mark Farmer

Sunlight is a powerful disinfectant.  If I’m doing it and it makes me ashamed to do it… then sunlight will help me not do it.  If _I_ feel shame doing it… then sunlight (doing it out in the open or out loud) will either help me accept it or get rid of it.

“But others might reject you!” come the frightened voices of the timid people-pleasers. 

Cool.  The sooner I found out who can’t accept me as I truly am, the better.  I don’t have enough energy for every goal _I_ want to accomplish in life… I’ll be damned if I waste MORE energy carrying fake people on my back who don’t really like me for who I am.

Others might not like, can’t handle, or find me irritating!?  The faster and easier we find that out and go our own separate ways, the better.  Better for you, because it doesn’t resonate with you; better for me, because, well… me.

Sometimes they say it differently:  “But maybe they’ll use it against you!!!”

Awesome:  The sooner I found out who’s a false friend, sick in their own mind or so broken that they’d actually TRY to use something of who I am or how I think or what I’ve done, against me, the better.  By admitting it out loud, by embracing it myself, by refusing to be shamed by being human I deprive them of any power over me.  Better I highlight the false prophets and fake friends to rid my life of their drag.

You are as Sick as Your Secrets.

You are as sick as your secrets.

And most of our “secrets” are things that others do – and feel – too.

When I’ve admitted the most shameful parts of myself, 99 times out of a 100 what I get is, “Oh my god… ME TOO.”

I’m going to resume living out loud. I choose to dare to be myself.

That you panic and “I could NEVER” admit something you did, or hold an opposing opinion to a loved one, or choose to do it differently than someone else wanted, or risk “making a fool” of yourself or being wrong because, well, maybe someone else would do it better or would do it differently – is only a statement about your own failure to honor yourself; your own rejection of YOU.

There are a great many people living just the way I describe:  trying to please their husband, their boss, their co-workers, that clerk in the store, EVERYONE.

And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to make others around you happy.  But you’re not going to do that by squashing what’s unique about you.  You’re not going to do that at the expense of yourself.  Not at the expense of denying how you think or feel; not at the expense of squashing your light; not at the expense of honoring the reality of how you did it or what you wanted.

So do it.  Dare to be yourself. Ineptly if that’s how it comes out.  But start living your light and stop judging every thought and action by some arbitrary “them” and how “they’d” do it or what “they” will think.

Whatever you want in life – to start a business, obtain a graduate degree, or find the love of your life – I’ve led thousands of people in reaching dreams just like yours. And I KNOW you’re capable of reaching success with the help of my coaching. Reach out now and I’ll even offer you the first session for free!

——— Start here, start now! ————-

“Mark’s deep coaching skills are profoundly insightful. As a coach who shows up fully and authentically, there is no stone he leaves unturned to help his clients see for themselves the highest future vision of themselves and then… he goes that extra mile to ensure that they have all the support that they need to actualize that vision.” — Monica Mascarenhas