Is Your Compass Broken?
Relocating your authentic self
By: Lisa Wynn

If you were to be asked “Who are you”? What would you answer? Most likely “I am an accountant, a wife, a mother, an attorney”. The answer is often not what you are, but what you do, how you see your function in this life. Are you defined by what you do? If you cannot answer who you are, at your very core, than it may be because you really don’t know.

When I consult clients on business, I ask them, “If nobody was around, and it was you on an island, stripped of all your duties and expectations, who are you? What drives you? What have you always wanted to do, to try? What are your interests, your curiosities? What moves you!? Gives you Goosebumps? Rocks your world?

I can almost hear them blink.

So many women today have lost their “authentic self”. Many have never known it. This would be your true self. The stuff you are made of. The authentic self is the real you at your very core. Another higher level of existence, the one most women are not in touch with. Just you, without childhood contracts, (those have expired) inherited roles, or what you think your friends and family expect you to be. Who is this authentic self? It is a collage of your knowledge, your desire to grow, your passion and talents, things that require expression?

We were created as creatures of communication. Yet we simply go on with our day doing what we do, never nurturing our authentic true selves. I speak with dozens of women who are slowly loosing time and youth, to quite possibly look back with regret.

Fictional Self

Several women live in their fictional self. They feel incomplete, as if a vacuum lives inside their heart. After listening miserable complaining women, I am convinced that depression is “The gap between expectations and reality”. Soon they are blaming a spouse, the kids, or their own bad luck for the dreary life they lead. Life is choices, and only you can make the correct ones for a happy fulfilled you. You may have found it predictably easier to play your “inherited” roles, juggling a million tasks because you can. But at what cost? Stressed, exhausted and yelling?

Going on like this, without taking real time for ones own dreams will suck the life out of you, taking with it the critical energy needed to accomplish genuine fulfillment. You are not defined by a perfect house or perfect kids. You are a valuable human who deserve happiness and fulfillment. Alone time, fun time, learning time, girl time. I cannot explain how much better I feel by simply walking away from my desk and going to a coffee house with a book.
My goal this year…renting a cottage by the water for one weekend to write or journal alone with a large bag of M&M’s and a pot of tea. It’s ok just to “be”.

If you are not in your “authentic self”, this means you are living as your fictional self ignoring your authentic self, walking around with a broken compass. The Fictional self gives you false information about who you are, and blocks the balanced reality you need in order to be guilt free in perusing your goals. Understandably there is balance in everything, and I am certainly not suggesting women suddenly pack up and abandon the family to go “find themselves.” Quite the opposite. You can be the best “me” without giving up “you” or anyone else. You don’t get married, start a business, or have children to give up half of you. You did it to add to you.

So find your authentic self and follow your heart!