Daring Monday: Be THAT Girl

That girl is is the you that you wish you could be, who you’d be if you didn’t have all your hang-ups, or who you used to be when you were little… That’s the girl I’m talking about.

When I was young I talked a lot (you think my blog posts are long, this is me with restraint), I mean, I talked pretty much non-stop. I didn’t just talk a lot though, my entire presence was one of confidence; I knew what I was doing and how I was doing it and I didn’t much care what else was happening. I’m the one who stopped the classroom boys from bullying the “chubby” guy one day on the playground. I’m the one kids came to when someone got hurt on at the park. I suppose, it’s probably safe to say that when I was young, I strutted my stuff. Strutted and talked… that was me.

Until of course that was all “corrected” out of me. I was socially trained to understand that who I was, talking and confident and in control, was undesirable. I was teased, ostracized, and out right insulted. I’ve had trusted leaders and “friends” tell me (from childhood right up into my 20s) that I: “Should be a lawyer” (because I talk so much – it was meant to be degrading), “Talked too much,” was “nice, but you get on my nerves sometimes” (yes, someone told me this to my face), that I needed to stop talking because I “intimidated them,” and oh yeah, I talked too much. And these are just the thing the people I liked and trusted told me.

It didn’t take much of this for me to learn that I needed to learn to be someone besides who I was if I wanted to fit in. The problem is, when society at large degrades and attacks your personality, they forget to offer you an new alternative. They all told me they didn’t want me to be who I was, but nobody clarified who I should be. I think this kind of vacuum is just a set up for creating “approval issues”: I’ll be whoever you want me to be if you’ll just like me. Add that to my list of childhood experiences and it’s pretty fair to say that I have issues with being rejected. And, it’s not really all the shocking that I do.

But I’m learning to deal with it.

So, this week, as I’ve been worrying about whether people are going to sign up for the Everyday Mystic course (this is the last week to apply by the way), fussing about how we are going to work our finances out this month, and crossing my fingers praying I’ve made the right business decisions (and that people really do like me)… Whenever I go to my still quiet place and pray asking for reassurances, guidance, or just general results the answer I’ve gotten is: Be That Girl.

You know, that confident, in control girl who always knew what she was doing. The one who didn’t care what others were doing and made her own way. You know, the one who did what struck her at the moment and didn’t even consider the consequence or how it wold work out. The one that drove my mother (and adults in general) crazy… Be her.

Just put her on like a dress or a mask.

It’s really easy to forget who we are, it’s even easier to simply neglect to act like that person (even if we haven’t quite forgotten them yet). It takes effort and awareness to overcome all that conditioning and those neurosis, to get out of our rut and stop just reacting based on habit. Being ourselves is almost as much work as being who our parents, spouses, and society at large have decided we should be. More often than not, it takes a conscious decision on our part to manifest that girl (or guy if you happen to be of the more masculine sex).

If there is one thing that I know for sure it’s that our world, our experience, is shaped by our perspective and our expectations. We control the world we live in by the way that we see and interpret what is happening around us. The difference between “Insecure, Worried Megan” and “Confident (but talks a lot) Megan” is little more than the attitude and perspective I choose to adopt on any given morning.

I have to choose, what world I want to experience and what stories I want to tell myself. And while the old me is still a little lost and buried, or keeps getting caught up in the newer (but less desirable) me’s dirty laundry I need to make more of an effort to tap into her and to let her story be the one that comes out.

So, this week I’m starting my day by thinking about That girl: what would she do today? How would she behave? What would she be focused on? And then behaving that way. I’m choosing to take on the real me’s confidence, sunny disposition, and talking ways and working on letting the other me’s old habits of doubt, worry and fear fade away. It’s a challenge, but being daring has never been easy!

Over to You:
Do you have a That girl/guy? Is it (like me) someone you used to be? Or, maybe it’s someone you want to grow into being? What is your That Girl/Guy like? How would your day/week be different if you chose to live with your That Girl attitude instead of the old one?