Who am I?

Usual question and very curious!
It took me years to understand that was the wrong question.
I should be asking “Why am I who I am?”.
Why am I the way I am?
Why do I live the experiences I live?
Why do I meet the people I meet?
Curiously, I discovered that I always believed in the power of love and everything that comes from it. Therefore, I ended up unveiling my own core beliefs, those beliefs that guide me throughout life. Yeah! Love, Kindness, Gratitude, Integrity and Tolerance. Looking really deep into all of these beliefs I found Love in each of them. Because everything about life is love. Everything in life is love.
Well, I believe in the power of love. I believe in a world of Kindness and Joy. I see this love inside me. I see this love inside everyone around me. I see this love in you. I believe in you and I believe in me. And definitely I believe in the human potential.
By understanding this, I realized that to be authentically me I needed to live by that belief, the belief in the power of love. I needed to use it as my guide, because I am a giver. However, I realized that as a giver it is so difficult to know how to stop or when to stop. Setting and respecting boundaries is very difficult for a giver, because a giver needs to help, to give without limitations. But, if people don’t know my boundaries or if I go out of my boundaries (or if I don’t have boundaries), I won’t be able to be authentically me.
This was an eye-opening process for me, because it brought me to my own needs – the needs behind my actions, my words, my experiences, my emotions, my feelings, the way I relate to others and to myself, really!
And it showed me that for a long time I had no boundaries. The need to be recognized, to be loved, to be accepted by others made me do and accept everything someone else wanted. This showed me the lack of self-love I was living in. Giving others without giving myself. This way I wasn’t being authentically me. I was just being what others expected of me.
In the end, I understood that I am a Loving person, but for many years I wasn’t being loving because I believed that I didn’t deserve to be loved. In my mind, I wasn’t lovable, so how could I be loving? I wasn’t enough to be loved, so how could I be loving back? That was the reason for not setting my boundaries. Thus, I wasn’t being true to myself.
Love isn’t accepting everything someone else asks for. Love comes from you. So, start by loving yourself. Love is setting your boundaries and sticking with it. Love is respecting yourself and then respecting those around you. Love is to be kind, loving, compassionate and tolerant with yourself and then with someone else. Love is to be authentically you and allowing other people to be authentic when with you. Love is knowing what you’re willing to let go to help someone else and what you’re not willing to let go even if someone asks for your help. Love is not to judge, not even yourself, well, specially yourself. Self-love reflects onto those around you! It’s like a reflection from your inner self to someone else. If you feel loved, if you love yourself, you’ll love someone else, because you are reflecting your own self-love.
This are the big differences between being loving or being a doormat!
Some years ago I was a doormat. Anyone could ask me for anything and I would do it with a big smile on my face. I was willing to help, because I was a good girl. I had that stupid belief that I had to help others, because I was a nice girl. Couldn’t say no. Nice girls don’t say no. I really believed that I was a kind and loving person and that I was really helping people around me.
You know what?
I wasn’t being kind or loving. I was being selfish. I wasn’t helping people around me. I was really hurting them, because I wasn’t allowing them to take responsability on their own lives.
Now, how can you be authentically you?
Simple.
Be aware of your needs and how you are fulfilling them. Ask yourself – and, please, be honest, Fool’s honesty, okay – what needs are you trying to fulfil when you decide to do something? Is it a positive way of doing so? This means that sometimes we look for a way that looks like the easier way to fulfil a need and in the end, it is the most painful and difficult one. You have a need to fulfil, but you’re just pushing that need away, instead of really fulfilling it.
Make sure that everything you do for yourself or for others is because you really want to do it, instead of responding to your inner judgement. What I mean by that is to look for the motive behind your actions. Are you doing that just because you think it would make you look bad if you didn’t? Or is it because you think that saying no, shows a side of you that you are ashamed of?
Don’t judge yourself. Never judge yourself!
Accept yourself with all the flaws and gifts you brought to this world.
Feel free to transform yourself if you want to. But only if it is your will to do so.
To want to change something in you is not a demonstration of not acceptance.
Growth is a way of love and acceptance.
To be authentically you is to love yourself in a way that you no longer feel the need to hide yourself from others, not even hide your weirdness.
We are all weird in a certain way.
Accept it and free yourself to live fully.
Light up the world with your authentic being, because the world is waiting for you!