Essence, identity, and being yourself before you die

Who will you be when you die? 

When you were born, your essence shined like a prism. The raw, perfect, and unique genius of your being scattered colors across your life like a rainbow cutting through a storm. But at some point, you were told that your essence, that authentic, free aspect of yourself, was not allowed anymore. 

You can’t be so imaginative.

You can’t be so innocent. 

You can’t be that intelligent. 

You can’t be so emotional. 

And you internalized that message. I did that too. 

I stopped dancing. I grew overly conscious of my body and how it moves. I worried about what other people would think of me. The stories of judgment and shame grew so loud in my head that the only way I felt I could quiet them was to stop doing what I loved to do. This went on for years and that light in me continued to dim. Until I chose to let go and stop repressing myself.

Adorned with a magenta scarf, I channeled my inner Stevie Nicks in front of a group of conscious leaders that are some of the most incredible humans on this planet. I twirled with the wrap’s fringe swaying wildly and danced my heart out, uninhibited, for the first time in a long time. And in that moment of letting go, I realized the extent to which I had been constraining and constricting this part of me that has been aching to be seen. The part of me that wants to create spontaneously with abandon. 

A lot of the work around bringing your essence back, that perfectly unique part of yourself that you may have hidden away, into your daily life and reintegrating that part of yourself back into the world involves self-awareness, experimenting, and daring yourself to do things that may make you uncomfortable. It also involves tuning your constriction radar to become skilled at noticing when you’re pushing that part of you back into the shadows again. 

When you constrict, that’s okay. There’s no need to beat yourself up for it. That is the nature of things and a part of the process. We stop allowing. We get attached to the shame that wants to keep us small. 

But that inevitably starts to feel stifling. You’ll feel the grips of that constriction work against you because you’re denying your truest gifts and attributes. 

The faster you can recognize when you stop allowing and pay attention to the cost, the faster you can gently, easefully, with total love, just let go again and be. 

xo,