We are labeled often. Whether it is our religion, sex, colour of our skin, financial status, city we are from, or just our own personality itself. We are defined by how others perceive us.
When people create a stereotype of who we are, sometimes, we adapt to fit into their stereotype to ensure we don't disappoint them. It becomes easy to be what people expect than be our honest self.
"You are a great person."
"You are a fun person."
"You are so intelligent."
The compliments can become a jail if we are not self aware about our true self. We add on pressure to our selves to meet and exceed their expectation and start feeling guilty if we feel that we are not.
I find that this also applies to negative comments.
"You are a mean person."
"You are an angry person."
"You are a player."
The negative comments that we receive also put us in a jail because we are often too scared to show our authenticated self. We start feeling comfortable being the negative stereotype those others put us into.
But our true self is not defined by how others define us. It is impossible to define an individual with descriptive words. We are all human with different stories. As we embrace our true form of self and honest about our true character, we experience true freedom.
We are loved. We are created to love. And we can only love when embrace who we are and be confident in our honest self. Then we are humbled by love and honesty.
So as we kick off a new year, rid of all of the definitions and description about who you are. You are you. You are imperfectly perfect. And you are already loved and accepted.