What brand are you?
Are you living from your core values? Are you someone you would take your own advice from?
I had an interesting conversation with a friend awhile back that I just thought of.
In this conversation, he talked about being a brand, and how you want to market yourself to the world. If you were a brand, what brand would you be? And, would you buy that brand? Essentially, you pose the question to yourself as to whether the brand you currently portray is something you would trust, invest in and recommend to others?
This conversation pops up in my head frequently, and I often ask myself what brand I am portraying to others, and is this brand authentic to who I really am? What's more, would I take advice from this brand, and would I purchase it?
Branding and marketing is obviously a common strategy in every business, but taking it a step further into your personal life puts it on another level. When you see yourself as a brand, you start thinking about things differently. Are you consistent, are you trustworthy, are you someone you would take your own advice from? Are you someone you would recommend to others?
Brands evolve with time, but their core message stays the same. I often think of my own core message and what I want to portray to the world, even though it changes. Overall, it's the message that you can not only survive severe childhood trauma, but thrive. You don't have to rely on external factors for happiness, resolution, or peace, because you can give that to yourself. You can build a life you love the way you want to, regardless of what others say, what X group thinks or X group says.
Let me know the answer to these questions in the comments below:
1. What brand are you?
2. What’s your core message?
3. Are you someone you would take your own advice from?
I'm not here to fit in or make your life more comfortable
Living in authenticity with yourself means sticking your values and beliefs, no matter how outrageous, hard, or angry it may make others.
The below poem carries so much meaning for me. Especially during this time of finger pointing, us versus them mentality, the "if you're not this then you're this" accusations, shaming so many into silence for fear of repercussions, and censoring those who have not silenced themselves.
We all want to fit in and be part of a group, we all want to feel like we’re “doing good” and helping society, but at what cost of to our authentic self?, our beliefs and our integrity I guess that's for each of us to decide.
"We are not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide exempla for others. We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece, our little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being. As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves.”
— James Hollis
The Road Less Traveled Poem
I always loved this poem by Robert Frost, as to me it seems that I’m constantly pushed on the road less traveled, even though I try to take the road so many others do.
I try to live up to other’s expectations, or behave how I think others think I should behave. Every time it leaves me unhappy, confused, and dissatisfied. Every time I return back to myself, and on my own path, is when I find my happiness.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
— Robert Frost
A message to myself, passed to you.
These were words to myself for my own healing, which have since helped countless others in their healing journey. I share them with you now.
You're not broken, you’re blocked. Throughout your journey you’ve run into obstacle after obstacle blocking your path, until they prevented you from going further.
This may seem like the end of the road, but it’s not, you just haven’t seen all your options. That’s because obstacles are detours in the right direction. When a door closes, there is always a window. Doors lead to the ground. Windows lead to the sky, and the sky has endless possibilities.
Right now you’re looking around you, trying to see what other doors and passageways are open. But you’re not looking up, at the windows. That’s your way out.
You carry pain, which you’ve accepted as a part of life. But pain is not just a part of life, it’s LIVING. You have lived. You’ve known grace, sorrow, loss, love, joy, pain, and so much more. Pain is a blessing, because it means you're alive. If you don’t feel pain, you aren’t living. You aren’t alive.
But pain is exhausting when you can't let it go. You struggle to carry it, dragging it with you in life. What you don’t know is how to transmute that pain into power, purpose, & pleasure. When you do that, you’ll be unstoppable. You’ll feel alive for the very first time.
You may not feel alive now from the weight you carry, but you can let that go. I know because I did. I embraced the pain & allowed it to transform me. It made me stronger, more capable, kind, loving, and caring for myself & those along my path. But most of all, I learned to honor myself, first and foremost.
Perhaps our paths will cross one day, or perhaps you were meant to read this now to help you feel supported, strong, loved, & empowered. Perhaps you were meant to see what being alive, thriving, and healed really is. My scars are always there, but the wound has healed.
Healing allows you to evolve into the person you want to be, someone YOU will be proud of. When that happens you will know, because what’s inside will finally match what everyone already sees on the outside: a healed, whole, complete person. One who’s alive, joyful, peaceful, calm, and free. Free to be you, in any way you please. Free from the constrains of societal pressures and worries of other people’s opinions.
Free to harness the power to heal yourself.
Stop prioritizing others over yourself
100% this is something I have to keep reminding myself of for the rest of my life. I used to wear it as a badge of honor that I always prioritized others over myself, until I realized I was drowning in sacrificial behavior, living for everyone else except myself.
The only thing we know about what will happen this year is that we don’t know. So why not make it a year for healing? A way to use this time of uncertainty to our best advantage. For growth, healing, taking care of our mental health, and accepting that things may never be as they were “before”.
As a trauma specialist, I know how important it is to use time like this to focus on healing child wounds. @tanaamen explains this wonderfully, addressing a common strategy of hiding or minimizing past traumatic experiences:
“The concept of hiding—or minimizing—a traumatic past is a common survival strategy for many people. It’s as though we’d like to take all those frightening, chaotic, humiliating, or abusive memories and put them in a box that others can’t access. This way no one can see the secret pain hidden inside—or so we think.”
These things only work to come to the surface later in life, when similar traumatic experiences trigger the initial trauma, leaving you more traumatized and unable to cope in the future. A bit like what’s happening in our world today. We’re seeing A LOT of unhealed trauma coming to the surface, triggered by the events around us.
Healing from past trauma is the greatest gift we can give ourselves, and the greatest way to prioritize ourselves over others.
Let’s use this year of uncertainty to take care of our mental health first. Let’s use this time to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
If you’re feeling anxious, frustrated, fearful, ask yourself where this is coming from and when you first experienced this feeling. Once you trace it back to the root and heal it, you can move forward in life with a new outlook, new perspective and new love for yourself.
I know because I did it 🙌✨💜