Who are you?

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on

Today I would like to talk about being the authentic you. Most times in life there are many factors that groom what we become. Society, upbringing, our location, circumstances the list is endless, but have you ever asked yourself that one question I am I living the life that God intended me to be. I would like to share my personal story. My dad wanted to me to a doctor and he did everything to see that I become one, to tell you the frustration I went through when I was in school was not a good one until I choose a different path of life. I am a Statistician by profession but my passion has moved from this to connecting with people and trying to help people attain purpose in life so did the life balance wellness program come to existence which one would call being self-aware after making a self-reflection.

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are”- Carl Jung. Has life reached a point of so much boredom that everything you do seems like that you are hitting a dead end. You pretend that all is well but yet deep inside of you the reality is you are not living a life of purpose. Here is a story that would bring to light what I am trying to communicate. There was once a pregnant lion that was on its last legs. She dies soon after giving birth. The newborn not knowing what to do, makes its way into a nearby field and mingles with a herd of sheep. The mother sheep sees the cub and decides to raise it as its own.

And so the lion cub grows up along with the other sheep and starts thinking and acting just like a sheep. It would bleat like a sheep and even eat grass! But it was never truly happy. For one, it always felt that there was something missing. And secondly, the other sheep would constantly make fun of it for being so different. 

They would say, “You are so ugly and your voice sounds so weird. Why can’t you bleat properly like the rest of us? You are a disgrace to the sheep community!” The lion would just stand there and take in all these remarks feeling extremely sad. It felt it had let down the sheep community by being so different and that it was a waste of space.

One day, an older lion from a far off jungle sees the herd of sheep and decides to attack it. While attacking, it sees the young lion running away along with the other sheep. Curious as to what was happening, the older lion decides to stop chasing the sheep and pursues the younger lion instead. It pounces on the lion and growls asking it why it is running away with the sheep? 

The younger lion shakes in fear and says, “please don’t eat me, I am just a young sheep. Please let me go!”. Upon hearing this, the older lion growls, “That’s nonsense! You are not a sheep, you are a lion, just like me!”. 

The younger lion simply repeats, “I know I am a sheep, please let me go”.  At this point the older lion gets an idea. It drags the younger lion to a river nearby and asks it to look at its reflection. Upon looking at the reflection, the lion much to its own astonishment realizes who it really was; it was not a sheep, it was a mighty lion!

The young lion feels so thrilled that it let’s out a mighty roar. The roar echoes from all corners of the jungle and frightens the living daylights out of all the sheep that were hiding behind the bushes to see what was happening. They all flee away.  No longer will the sheep be able to make fun of the lion or even stand close to it for the lion had found its true nature and its true herd.

The Moral of the story is, the older lion in the story is a metaphor for ‘self awareness’ and looking at the reflection in the water is a metaphor for ‘self reflection’. 

When the younger lion becomes aware of its limiting beliefs through self reflection it realizes its true nature. It is no longer influenced by its surroundings and develops a bigger vision in alignment with its nature.

Just like the younger lion in this story, you might have been brought up in surroundings that were negative and hence accumulated many negative beliefs about yourself. Bad parenting, bad teachers, bad peers, media, government and society can all have these negative influences on us when we are young. 

As an adult, it is easy to lose yourself in negative thoughts and to start feeling like a victim by blaming the past. But that will only keep you stuck in the current reality. To change your reality and find your tribe, you need to start working on your inner self and focus all your energy towards becoming self aware.

So you may be asking yourself where is my starting point. A major aspect of being your authentic self is following your passion. What are you passionate at? what task gives you a sense of easy when performing, do you get that state of flow when doing that one thing.

Hope this has been helpful. Leave a comment of your thoughts.