Your Best Self is your Bad Days

Be the best you, what does that mean? Is it a positive or a negative? Is it the best you according to a checklist you’ve been preconditioned to believe is the best you ? Is it what you think others would be blown away by? Is it your ego’s opinion on a good hair day? I mean, really at this point in 2022 when we are so saturated with opinions and bombarded with social media messaging and voices. Not to mention the world being turned upside down. Is it even possible to know what the best you are , or are you surviving? Or is it just another play by society to make you feel like whatever you are is not good enough. It’s hard to know isn’t it?

For me, I guess I go in and out of being influenced by outside sources and people .On my good days I think ‘Yes “ I’ve got this its ON Im going to be the best me, I get it I relate to it and I believe in it , and just the statement itself motivates me and I feel connected .On other days the best me is work, gym a few common courtesy statements and then I’m dying to get home to a big spoon , pjs that look like a Rottweiler shredded them ( but comfy as hell ) and my divine go too sugar free organic peanut butter. Which FYI, by the way is not something I should be eating as my eastern doctor told me he helped grow my 15cm by 12 cm fibroid in my belly at one point but yet on those bad days I go right in like Jaws himself with that spoon with a side dish of my latest addiction on Netflix.. It is possible I have also felt sorry for myself at least three different times in the day prior to this btw, guilty! Being my best self feels like it’s not possible on these days. Am I the only one who feels like they have committed a crime after a day similar to the one I described ? I can also guarantee you on my not so good days there is not a soul in site that would tell me “ Come on Manny get it together be your best self ha ,cause they know I will chew their head off ! But, the most important part of all of that is it only feels like you aren’t being your best self. It never means it isn’t. This is what we need to hold space for our bad days are part of who we are as humans, and we have to allow ourselves time to grieve, cry, process, for cramps, for sorrow, for anger. That is how you carve space for the better days.

So at this point you may be jumping ahead to the end of this blog going “ Ok, she’s against “ Be your best self “statements and wants to form a group against them !! No, that actually couldn’t be farther from the truth. I still love them deeply and profoundly. I still read them but I’m not as naive, when I do I see they can blanket our truest selves from emerging, and cover the real emotions of our hearts and souls, we are complex. I have also learned they only have power if you don’t hold them as a standard to judge yourself by, or a measuring stick of how well you’re doing. If you don’t take them more seriously than your beautiful authentic soul of a self. And if you realise they can make you feel disempowered, and off kilter, if you’re having a mental health day they can bring you way lower.

Being your best self has a different meaning for me as I have matured (experienced life) and learned the depth of myself. It is not as simple as being positive , or looking good or saying you are good.Yes, I am most definitely getting philosophical with you, because it’s that time. It’s about accepting who you truly are and allowing yourself to be seen, with all your faults. And most of all to be loved with all your faults.

My challenging and unique life experiences have at times brought me to my knees as I’m sure you feel the same, humbled me to pieces I thought I would never be able to gather again.Like I had been scattered in places And faces.As I’ve risen time and time again , I have become aware of my power and who I am, who I want to become and I have realised part of being the best you is shutting down and shutting out everything you have ever learned and re-learning who you are in the present moment time and time again. And allowing your hurt & joy to propel you forward like a symphony. Why would I suggest such an absurd thing? Because , we have to go inward and close out the noise to truly hear what’s important to us .To know who our real self is and each of our lessons are only ours no one else holds the truth in thode intimate places but us .To recognise that we so easily can switch into auto-pilot pretending and trying to please society or prove ourselves to others. When our soul needs no proving, it needs space, acceptance and having blind faith.

It means owning yourself and that requires allowing those bad days and accepting you are always shifting and changing as we are always growing and expanding through our experiences. It can be so exhausting to wake up every morning and think I have to be better. Because there are times we ignore ourselves, neglect ourselves, lose ourselves, hate ourselves (hopefully not too much but we are human), love ourselves, don’t respect ourselves and then honour ourselves . It’s a revolving door at best and it takes patience to learn how to love more of ourselves. Hold space for our pain and other’s. So waking up everyday and trying to be more is unhealthy and that’s not positivity it’s toxic positivity, when you’re not allowing your real emotions and true feelings space.

Even when we hit the mark, it feels like a moving target. I think a better way to view it, especially after all we have been through ,is to keep growing into your most authentic self and asking how am I showing up at this moment? What is being required you. Allow growth to come from a place of knowing this too shall change and pass , and I am enough when I show up authentically and as my whole self. We are evolving so it cannot be caught or captured in still form. Holding on to the fact that truly being your best self can change in a week depending on what you learn, accept, heal from, acknowledge, overcome and understand more of. What you focus on, why not focus on you!

I feel this is when we become limitless and open to our own personal magic. The unknown BEST SELF…. Becoming him or her x