I Had to Lose Myself to Find Myself. It's Okay to Be Unique.
Updated: Sep 6
I googled who initially stated, "sometimes you have to lose yourself to find yourself," which returned results including Willem Dafoe and a few other modified versions. Either way, it's a quote that I experienced firsthand. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, love and belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization are oriented towards the top, emphasizing self-actualization at the top. Just to break it down a bit further before I dive into how I personally had to find myself again:
Self-actualization includes: realizing personal potential, personal growth, and accomplishments
Self-esteem includes: the esteem of oneself, which comes from mastery and independence, and then the need to be accepted or valued by others (basically the ideology of societal norms and status quo)
Love and belongingness includes: friendship, intimacy, trust, affection, love, being part of a group, etc.
With that being said, it makes sense how people can fall into peer pressure or get influenced to do things they may not want to do. I found a book I made when I was younger called "My Life," and it was nostalgic thinking back to those days that seem to be simpler, not knowing what the true reality of life had in store as we grow older and have to understand responsibilities as an adult. To be honest, I feel like I've always been unique or set apart, but sometimes, as kids, I don't even think we realize how impressionable we are, especially since we haven't matured cognitively when it comes to critical and logical thinking. Personally, I don't know if there's such a thing as the "perfect childhood," but what I do know is that I enjoyed how diverse my friendships were.
As we grow older, our personalities change, we meet new people, form new ideologies, and come into our own as an individual in society, and of course, that's when the real growing up happens. A few weeks ago, my mother told me I was like a kid in a candy store and I'm always curious about everything and it made me chuckle inside (it wasn't meant as a compliment but it reminded me of the rapper Tupac because he said the same thing about himself during an interview , Tupac Unseen Gridlock’d Interview (1996), and he's a Gemini) but that's just who I am; it allows me to stay balanced as a young adult who's still learning, growing, and maturing. I don't know if I really believe in zodiacs or not, but with my sun in Pisces, moon in Cancer, and rising in Gemini, there's a whole lot of duality packed in my lil' package of a personality, so I'm able to understand the contradictions and polarities of life: the good/bad, happiness/suffering, etc. In Christian theology, I believe it's called dichotomy, and in Chinese philosophy, I believe it's yin and yang. Either way, there's an understanding that there are distinct opposites or phenomena in life that are inevitable. Nonetheless, I feel like I unconsciously grew up with this understanding, and it has both helped and hindered me throughout my life.
As we grow older, our personalities change, we meet new people, form new ideologies, and come into our own as an individual in society, and of course, that's when the real growing up happens. A few weeks ago, my mother told me I was like a kid in a candy store and I'm always curious about everything and it made me chuckle inside (it wasn't meant as a compliment but it reminded me of the rapper Tupac because he said the same thing about himself during an interview , Tupac Unseen Gridlock’d Interview (1996), and he's a Gemini) but that's just who I am; it allows me to stay balanced as a young adult who's still learning, growing, and maturing. I don't know if I really believe in zodiacs or not, but with my sun in Pisces, moon in Cancer, and rising in Gemini, there's a whole lot of duality packed in my lil' package of a personality so I'm able to understand the contradictions and polarities of life: the good/bad, happiness/suffering, etc. In Christian theology, I believe it's called dichotomy, and in Chinese philosophy, I believe it's yin and yang. Either way, there's an understanding that there are distinct opposites or phenomena in life that are inevitable. Nonetheless, I feel like I unconsciously grew up with this understanding, and it has both helped and hindered me throughout my life.
As I started to gain knowledge about the world and other cultures from friendships and relationships, especially during undergrad, I started to become ashamed of who I was and where I came from, and it wasn't until things unraveled last year that I was able to realize who I am and be proud of where I come from, unapologetically.
Me being me, I have to keep it real for a moment…I‘ve definitely had days (more so recently) where I wish I never connected with a lot of people because maybe everything that transpired 2016 and beyond could’ve turned out better (there goes that should’ve, could’ve, would’ve) but that’s a reality I’ll never get a chance to know because the past is gone and I’m the one who chose to get distracted instead of listening to my discernment, intuition, and focus on my own pathway in life. Nonetheless, I still value the knowledge I've gained from the people I've met and learned from the experiences because those connections still made me who I am today. Being curious, multifaceted, quiet, kumbaya, "sweet", naïve, and carrying passive aggressive tendencies to avoid conflict did nothing for me and although I still value that we're all different and may be cut from a different cloth...what matters to me most is character, respect, and how an individual treats other people (behind closed doors and when the cameras go away) and I've learned that it's okay to stand ten toes down when it comes to my boundaries because unlike other people who may say it as a trend, speaking energy is my first language.
I've always been a self-aware individual but I would manipulate myself into connecting with too many energies a.k.a. people (esteem, love and belonginess are complicated) that didn't truly mean me well and if they did, I allowed their issues to unconsciously affect me, amplifying my shadow self (feeling insecure, inadequacy, anger, confusion, laziness, paranoia) instead of walking away indefinitely; whether I'm judged or not, liked or not, etc., it is what it is because as individuals (more so grown adults) we're allowed to walk away from things that no longer serve us, especially if it doesn't involve mutualism or commensalism.
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