There’s a big difference between proving who you are—and simply being who you are.
Think about it for a second.
How often do we find ourselves justifying, explaining, or trying to prove that we’re somebody—worthy, good enough, lovable?
The Ego Is a Hustler
That’s the ego talking, the part of us that feels like it has to hustle for our worthiness. We’re all hustlers when the ego reigns. That’s the “self” we curated early in life to cope with mistreatment. When we discovered that being loved for who we are, we transformed ourselves into who we needed to be in order to survive. It was a smart choice, a choice for survival. Ego is compelled to prove itself, to explains its choices. It’s MO is self-justification because it doesn’t feel legitimate.
Freedom to Self-Express
Do you ever wonder what it would be like to end the hustle? Self-expression is nature’s way. A tree does tree. The river does river. A bird birds. Humans are the only creature with the freedom to be other than who we are naturally. The goal is to free yourself, not to be somebody else, not to survive, but to be in alignment with your true self — your Heart Self. That is self-expression.
That’s freedom.
That’s you, being you, without needing permission, validation, or proof.
It’s the pure act of speaking, living, and feeling in alignment with your truth, without the pressure of how it’s received or whether it makes you “somebody” in the eyes of others.
This shift—from self-justification to self-expression—is a form of liberation.
Remembering Your True Nature
Just like when we were kids, we didn’t worry about being “enough” until the world taught us otherwise. We all have one or two experiences in life when we were unselfconsciously just being ourselves. When the adults weren’t watching. Playing with a bug, on the sport field, lost in reverie, in an experience that we didn’t have words for. In a sense, we weren’t there. It was a no-self experience, when we merged with the experience itself.
And then the big people started asking us to prove ourselves, to fit their mold, to live into their image of us. This is the true “fall from grace”, the loss of our innocent nature. The habit of proving we’re worthy starts then, but it doesn’t have to be where it ends.
What if you traded that in for simply being?
Expressing yourself for no other reason than it feels true to you, without the need to justify, explain, or impress?
That’s a new kind of freedom.
It’s not about being “somebody.” It’s about being you.
Here’s to that freedom. Here’s to your self-expression.
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