It happens. Wednesday morning brushing your teeth, you realize you don’t recognize the face reflected in the mirror. Questions pour through the opened floodgate. Who are you? How did I get here? What have I become? How is this my life? Some people perceive deep feelings of emptiness and a sense of surreal dissociation. Others experience debilitating depression, which threatens to consume the remains of a shattered soul. What do I do now? How do I fix this?

There are no simple answers. One size doesn’t fit everyone. I know we possess the unlimited capacity and remarkable creativity to identify the root issues and devise brilliant solutions. For me, conflict often arises from real-world necessities that feed our dreaded “should” lists. The word “should” has been responsible for condemning me to countless thoughts and actions which didn’t align with my core beliefs. It requires courage to examine the pile, choosing whether to keep or discard the attached command.

It is a time-consuming, soul-searching process, and deciding which principles matter doesn’t happen overnight. Karen Moning says, “The most confused we ever get is when we try to convince our heads of something that we know in our hearts is a lie.” We must press past fear, stop avoiding the tough questions, and answer them from our hearts. No matter how scared we are, moving forward means heeding our intuition, trusting we will recognize our truth.

How do you find your authentic self?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer