People often wonder, “What is my authentic self? Who am I, really?” Why am I struggling? What is wrong with me?

The answers, it turns out, are pretty straightforward, though not always consistent with our popular culture.

Our “real selves” are the lives we are living. However you are living: that is you. Whatever you are doing with your time: that is you. Are you content with how you are living? Do you feel good about what you are doing with your time? There is absolutely nothing “wrong” with you, though you may be doing things that are inconsistent with how you think of yourself, or living in ways that are at odds with how you believe you should be living your life.

Disharmony between how we think of ourselves and how we are actually living our lives drives us to think: “Something is wrong with me…”

Choosing Change

When we choose to heal, we choose to change how we are living our lives.

We begin to think deeply about our values and about the meaning of our lives. And then we choose to begin living our lives more consistently with those values and meanings.

We learn to forgive ourselves, and we fully embrace who we have been: the past cannot be unwritten. And we extend ourselves in new directions: in the direction of our values, and in the directions that give us meaning.

In short, we create ourselves. In the very deepest sense, our journey is to move toward becoming the person we sense, glimpse, and envision that we are capable of being -- a person who acts with strength, compassion, realism, curiosity, and flexibility.

Our journeys often require that we step through our pain, fear, compulsiveness, trauma, addiction, depression, and the other burdens that stand between who we are today and who we recognize we are capable of being.

While therapy is a journey, it is not a journey of  understanding “what’s wrong with me,” or of “being fixed.” Rather, it is a journey of recognizing and understanding who we want to be, and moving toward becoming that person.

Healing happens as we harmonize our lives with our values; healing is harmony between our lives and our values.

Like magic

Who do you want to be in this world? What are the values and meanings by which you want to arrange and live your life? What memories and meanings will you leave with others — with your spouse or partner, your children, your friends — and what mark will you leave on this world? 

You have this nearly magical opportunity — being alive. It starts when you realize that it’s started, and ends when it ends.  Who will you be, and how will you do it?