EMERGE!

I never fully immersed in the concept of being yourself. It is the response you get when you are telling your friends about meeting someone or going on a first date, you hear that when you are about to perform on stage or engage in public speaking. I am always there blank-faced like who is this ‘Self’ you all are talking about. It eluded me because I considered myself to be quite awkward and self-conscious. Silence and smiling was my response to nearly everything no matter how painful or traumatic it was.

For the many times, I stood in front of a camera or live on air, I barely had a sense of self. The person who I was had compartmentalized a lot and my passion for media and what I did became my sweet escape and like my friend would say, giving my best Oscar winning performance. For the fragments of myself that didn’t get seen or had a safe space to heal they were being stifled by personas, I had orchestrated to display that my life was fun and perfect in spite of the inner turmoils and trauma that I had endured. In the long run, these parts of myself that I was hiding began to leak out like blood stains on a white shirt. Everyone could tell that something was off.

I didn’t start to emerge until I made the conscious decision to get acquainted with myself. That process took me away from the fame, glam, and glitz of the industry to behind the scenes where I dedicated myself to serving other creative brands. Writing strategies and brand plans, working on their image, and being their PR rep. As time went on, I got wrapped up in other people’s drama/conflict, at this point there was a pause in my emergence because for you to emerge truly and authentically, you have to be willing to purge parts of yourself that don’t serve you anymore, be true to yourself (like saying NO when you need to say NO). 

Eventually, I untangled myself from other people’s drama and that came with a lot of resentments. For me to fully emerge into being myself, I had to strip myself of all the coping mechanisms I relied on which included stepping away from the media and anything that had to do with the entertainment industry. I stopped attending events, I didn’t care about posting on social media and all that jazz. I had to sit with myself and unresolved feelings during meditation. My first array into mirror meditation I broke down in tears for weeks. I had to expend all the blockages and energies that were obstructing my authentic self from shining through.

Allow yourself emerge! It takes more than an ego-death to do so. You have to get out of your head and get into your heart. What stories are you telling yourself that are stopping your true self from shining through? What facades and masks do you have on, obstructing your authenticity? Purge out that voice in your head that says you are not enough or that you can’t achieve anything. It’s time to take a good look inwards and emerge so beautifully. The world is your stage and it needs you, it needs your light, it needs your story, it needs your voice. EMERGE!