Are You Living Your Truth?

A couple of weeks ago we spoke about resilience and the fact that resilience is a quality you develop from the inside.

You are able to be resilient when you know how to adapt to change, when you know who you are and what qualities help you live and not just survive.

But knowing yourself gives you much more than just the ability to be resilient.

Knowing yourself and respecting yourself gives you the chance to be truly happy.

This will happen because happiness is a state of balance and assonance with your identity.

Let’s explain it in a simpler way: you are truly and fully happy when there is no distance between who you are and what you do to express your self.

When you are impassioned, engaged and motivated in what you do. When you are living your truth.

Living your truth means knowing what you are made of and honoring it through your actions, behaviors, roles, jobs... i.e. integrity with yourself.

Don’t you believe me?

Try to think back to a time in your life when you felt fully and completely happy.

What is the feeling you remember?

I have a vivid memory of a moment of pure happiness when I attended a bag making course years ago in a famous Academy in London.

I remember very well that feeling: it spoke of excitement, creation, completeness, harmony.

I belonged fully to that moment. I was fully present and fully aligned with myself through that experience.

When you live your truth there isn’t any room for the others’ judgment, you have no desire to search outside yourself. You are the source of your own happiness and you know it.

But do you know really know who you are?

I'll bet this question isn’t something you often think about.

It is a question that has the power to make you feel uncomfortable.

I want to suggest a funny shortcut for you to get to know yourself better: choose five words or adjectives that define you.

If I think about me I think of enthusiastic, energetic, curious, hungry for experiences, playful.

These words tell me well what it is most important to me, they are a nice way to explain what “I’m made of” and they are an incredible indicator of whether I am "living my truth”.

How so? If I discover that nothing I do excites me, if what I’m living doesn’t sate my curiosity or my hunger for new things, or does not allow me to express my energy, if the environment in which I operate is too boring and serious then I'm not respecting my truth. I’m forcing myself to live in a way that does not represent me.

And you know what? Clearly I cannot be happy in this environment.

Do you want to go one step further?

Let’s also define your style of interaction with others.

Use five adjectives that represent you. Mine are: involved, inspiring, caring, kind, tolerant.

I call them the characteristics of my social identity. If I cannot act in these ways then I feel uncomfortable, I do not feel myself.

Do you see what I am driving at?

I'm giving you an easy way to understand who you are.

The moment you recognize these things you acquire clarity and a measure to figure out which direction to move in in order to achieve a life that is your perfect representation.

Don’t stop here, please! Ask yourself every day if you are living and following your truth and if it isn’t happening review and alter your choices so that the answer becomes positive.

Well, then let’s stop creating excuses that prevent us from living happily: happiness belongs to you and belongs to everyone. ... Just find your best way to live it!