Feel free to just be you!

Are you strong enough to practice or just loud enough to preach?

When it comes to making decisions in life most of us seek approval. Very few of us are strong enough or confident enough to make the decision on our own and put it into practice. Now, there are definitely extremes- some people need help choosing what to have for dinner but that’s not what I mean. I’m not talking about being indecisive, what I mean is decisions which evoke change. This can be as simple as changing the colour of your hair to then the more complex like changing jobs or moving countries. I have faced many situations over the years which were ‘life changing’ and I always sought approval or reassurance from friends and family. It was strange though, because even when I got their approval or opinions I sought more confirmation that what I was doing was the right thing- Why? Because I wasn’t sure myself. I was avoiding taking the responsibility of making my own decision, caring too much about what other people thought. I had to speak about it to make it real, to convince myself.

Be honest with yourself, if you want to change a situation, any situation, how do you do it? Do you preach it to a group of people, friends, family, colleagues etc. until you have enough people with you, encouraging you and supporting you and then put it into action? Or do you go with how you really feel, make the decision and let people have the freedom of choice to comment, judge or follow? Looking back I absolutely sought reassurance, in many things, but it is only recently that I have realized the freedom you get from making your own decisions.

Earlier this year when I decided I wanted to leave my job as a marketing manager and follow my dream of becoming a full time yoga teacher I didn’t seek approval. This was a new thing for me. I made the decision; I knew it was what I wanted to do so I did it. It felt strange, I got mixed reactions from people and there were some friends who thought I was loosing the plot. It made me smile, and to be honest it still does, my little yoga buzz has caused quite a stir for some people. Many of these people are very opinionated and continuously speak about being different from everyone else, about not conforming.  But it surprises me how these are often the very people who like to preach about things then shy away from putting their expressed thoughts into actions for fear of adverse reaction. What if we all just made choices or decisions and put them into practice and gave other people the freedom to make up their own minds. What if we were strong enough to be honest with ourselves and enjoy that freedom without needing approval from others. At the end of the day once you are true to you does it really matter what other people think?

Think of a lamb in a field, now they know freedom. How often have you seen a little lamb lying down and suddenly jump up and start running? It’s like the thought just came into their head that they wanted to run, so they bounce up and run without a care in the world. Children are quite similar- if they want to do something, they do it- until their parents tell them to stop. How common is it to hear a parent say to a child, stop, you can’t do that… From a child’s point of view they are like the lamb, they feel like running so they run, they don’t stop to think where they are or who is watching. When they have an opinion or something to say they come straight out with out without a second thought, and then you see the parent cringing behind them- this is freedom. When was the last time you ran across the office just because you felt like running, or broke into song or dance on a bus just because you felt like it- we don’t, because we worry about what other people think about how we act and what we do.

Being confident to practice what you believe is the true testament to staying true to who you are, you don’t need to preach it. Listening to that inner voice in your head, you can’t lie to you. You can try to run from it or try to keep yourself so busy that you pretend you don’t hear it but you can’t lie to you. This is something I face regularly in yoga, both in trainings and classes. There seems to be this perception in some yoga circles that you have to stand out from the crowd, be at one with the earth and go against the rat race…. But a lot of the time it is just noise. If someone truly believes it they will just do it, they will follow their heart and won’t need to preach about it or seek approval. What other people say doesn’t matter because inside they are happy, they are being true to themselves.

The next time you face a big decision in life, choose what you want to do, choose what makes you happy.  Be you, not who you think people want you to be and enjoy that new sense of freedom.