This week I started the chapter called “Purpose” in Jay Shetteys book Think Like a Monk”. One quote stood out to me, and I related it to my journey of mindfulness. 

“There are two lies some of us hear when we were growing up. The first is ‘you’ll never amount to anything’ the second is ‘you can be anything you want to be’ the truth is- You can’t be anything you want. But you can be everything you are.” 

This quote really made me think for a moment. While trying to start this mindfulness journey I find myself trying to “better” myself but sometimes that puts a lot of pressure on me because I feel like I need to change. I feel like “to be” mindful and zen, I shouldn’t be as loud and outgoing as I usually am, and when I become aware of that I sometimes pull back from situations because I feel obnoxious. In reality that is stopping me from being who I really am, and that can be harmful.  So when reading this quote I had an aha moment because it made me realize that although I am eager to become more mindful, that does not mean I should change my whole personality and stop being who I am, because I can be everything I am.   

I then went to a yoga class with a couple of classmates, taught by one of our amazing classmates, Eddy, and during the practice he said, “be your authentic self during this practice” and this stood out to me as I had been thinking about the idea of authenticity for the week. This word and idea kept jumping out to me, so I realized I needed to do some deeper research to see what I could find out about authenticity and mindfulness.

Photo by Ashley Hall is licensed under CC BY 4.0 my friends and I at yoga 🙂

I stumbled across this article by yogapedia, and I found comfort in it with this quote, “The definition of authentic is ‘genuine’ and ‘real,’ or in other words, the combination of all your true qualities. I like to describe authenticity as ‘living your truth in the present moment.’” I pondered this quote for a while and I realized that I was trying to become people who come off as naturally calm and zen such as Jay Shetty because that is the idealistic or the stereotypical person who practices mindfulness. But through this article and my reflection on what I thought about authenticity this week, I realized there is no perfect mold for a person who practices mindfulness. I don’t need to change myself to become a more calm person. I can still practice mindfulness and better myself internally, but I don’t need to slip into being someone I am not or hide my authentic self.