Whose Life is it anyway?
This morning I was flipping through TikTok instead of reading, meditating or working…. And I want to say how unproductive that was, but if I hadn’t been I wouldn’t be writing this right now because I wouldn’t have been inspired when found this question:
Whose life are you living?
It struck me. I felt seen. I felt small. I felt empowered. I felt many feels.
As of this day, the day I saw that TikTok, the day I’m writing this article, I am 47 and it has been less than a year since I started living my own life. Scratch that, since I starting actively working towards living my own life. I’ll explain more in a bit.
You may be wondering how that’s possible and if you know me you know that I’ve been married twice and currently single. You know that I’ve had a corporate career and have been self-employed for a few years. You know that I’ve been putting myself out there. And you know that I absolutely love what I do.
Here’s what you probably do not know about me.
I’ve been living a life based on someone else’s expectations. Someone else’s idea of what’s right, how to live, and what not to do.
I’ve been living a life that I was told to live. Certainly not in an outright manner, but through the subtle cues of society and family.
So whose life have I been living? My dad’s. My family’s. My husbands’ and their families. Once upon a time, my classmates and coworkers.
The other thing you don’t know — and perhaps you feel a little of this as well — is that I harbored disgust for myself. I didn’t know it for the longest time, but finally figured it out not that long ago. I always thought women were weak and needed protecting. That women didn’t know how the world worked. That women weren’t capable of so many things simply because they were women. Some of these things I was directly told. Some I learned by watching. And then the rest were shown repeatedly in movies and TV shows. No matter how I learned them, I accepted them fully into my being and lived accordingly.
What a way to live!
To live most of your life unconsciously hating yourself because of your gender… That’s a tough pill swallow.
To believe that you can’t do so many things because you’re a girl, while shouting at anyone who would listen that I can, in fact, do anything you can do and I can do it better…. Fully knowing that I wouldn’t do it. Damn. That stings.
I could go on about the life I was living before, but I’m growing and becoming this newest version of myself. This version that writes more often and has a need to adventure. This version that embraces my femininity and vulnerability. This version that recognizes that I am a spiritual being having a human experience and it’s time for me to fully embrace and embody that. I still have old habits, like allowing my inner voice to convince me I’m making a mistake or no one will take me seriously. Or like binge watching anything on TV for hours on end, but that happens less and less. I’m working on my health and still love sweets. I allowed myself to isolate for so long and am just now really working on making deep and meaningful connections.
You might be wondering why now, why not earlier in your life and the truth is: My dad died.
It’s sad. And it’s devastating to lose a parent. And yes, I was working on myself prior to his death, but I wouldn’t have fully realized my own life had he not. He was the one person on this planet that would have kept me living his life. His ideas of what I should be doing.
I should clarify. There were some obvious things that I did that were definitely NOT the life he tried to impose upon me, but he had far more control over me than either of us truly knew. The most impactful being my love of my energetic and spiritual gifts. I wish I could have introduced who I really am to him, but I’m thankful for not continuing to have the friction of his expectations/disappointment and my being true to myself.
We don’t always realize that we’re living someone else’s life. And it’s not always this deeply rooted and full of… well…. Waves hand… this…. But once we do; that my sweet human, THAT is when we can start living our own fucking lives!
So, tell me, whose life are you living?
Part of this new me is to share the parts of myself that I have kept hidden for so long. I firmly believe some of what I have learned is meant to help others, maybe you…
