by Edna Reis
The emotions you feel - are they truly yours, or do they come from the environment that surrounds you? We tend to become so absorbed by our day to day lives that we don’t realize how much our surroundings influence our emotions.
What we do, like, believe, fear and feel is so influenced by our surroundings that it ends up dictating our lives without our awareness. We become complete strangers to ourselves by capturing society’s feelings as our own which makes us stop from recognizing the aspirations that come from within us.
What is your true self? Have you ever stopped to think about it? Is your true self the one imposed by society, or the one chosen and matured by you, by your truth?
Can you recognize your true self and the one imposed by society? Can you distinguish them?
Have you ever allowed yourself to stop, analyze and understand the different selves you carry? What is your truth? Which self matches your true aspirations, wishes and dreams? If you haven’t stopped to think, I suggest that you start reflecting on who you truly are, what your real feelings are and which direction you want to take. I assure you that by doing this you will understand how much of the things you feel, believe and want are not actually coming from you, but rather are coming from the outer world and you are simply absorbing as if they were yours.
Do this exercise and decide for yourself the self that you want to nurture from now on. You will start noticing that you will become more attuned with your own aspirations which will consequently protect you from being the sponge that absorbs all the extraneous emotions from the exterior. As a result, you will become lighter, healthier, happier and more engaged with life and its many different ways of presenting itself.
Edna Reis is a Psychologist and the Founder & Chief Wellbeing Officer of Active Wellness, a company whose aim is to help organizations to have a workforce with good mental health. As a psychologist, I consider it crucial to talk and make efforts to take care of our mental health, because this is a comprehensive part of the general well-being of the individual and society in general. The stability of the psyche of each and every person enables the stability of society as a whole.
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