To thine ownself be true

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Lana

I have recently found that it is easy to fool ourselves when things are what we wish them to be. We can only get away with that for so long because the truth starts flooding through. That is when you realize that you need to face the truth about life and people. People are unreasonable and they can hurt you. Sometimes, they can completely shock you with their bitterness and anger. All you can do is be the better person even when you feel like you are pulled from your center of balance.

I have to trust in myself in order to overcome the challenges that I am about to face. At first, I thought that things would just work out and that people could be as reasonable and as rational as I am, but I am the one up at 4 am trying understand what I need to do. There is so much I need to do and I also have more faith in myself and in God before even begin to move forward. To thine ownself be true…

”This above all: to thine ownself be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

-Shakespeare-Hamlet

Unless we are true to ourselves first, we cannot be true to anyone else. I know that I have struggled with being true to myself and in that process, I have lost who I am. It took someone else to tell me that I did not need others to define me because I was losing my ability to discover and grow inwardly. I have accepted lies for so long that I have forgotten what it means to be true to myself. The journey to self-discovery, my friends, is probably one of the most difficult journey we take in our lives. But without it, we cannot be set free from the unreasonable expectations that we allow others to impose upon us.

The word truth brings out the most negative emotions in us. This because we know that truth and change go hand-in-hand. Accepting the truth about ourselves is so difficult especially when we have been hurt so badly. The fact is, the truth is the only thing that can set us free and allow to heal. It is the only thing that can allow us the freedom to be ourselves, to come to terms with our weaknesses and appreciate what strengths we have.

Today, I don’t know what my self-truth is. I just know that I need to find it to be stronger and to have healthy boundaries in my life. Self-truth is also about love and because loving ourselves about living a life of truth. There are people are there who are incapable of loving themselves or even others. What it comes down to is that if we truly love ourselves, we are so much more open to loving others.

I have been told that if we have been honest with ourselves, truly honest, we can love ourselves despite our imperfections. I have struggled with this for 101 reasons but I am making progress because I have finally decided that I can be happy without the approval of others. I just need to actually do something about that so I can find freedom and so that I can feel free to be imperfect.

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About Lana

I will start by saying that my blog is about who I am and how I have grown, preserved, and endured since being diagnosed. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and fibromyalgia (FM) nearly five years ago after many years of dealing with symptoms that no doctor could explain. All I wanted was closure and, to me, that meant finding an answer to why I didn’t feel normal. Several days after having my now almost five year old, I awoke to the inability to walk or use my hands and within a week, I finally had a diagnosis and this time, it sank in that it was real thing. Steroids, a lack of energy, and physical pain take a toll on you. What the illness does to us, we cannot control. How we respond, how we choose to fight back, and how we go on is our defense against the war waging inside of us. Imagine being in a dark room and trying to make your way around. Then, imagine that you find a light switch and the room becomes dim, not bright, but enough for you to navigate your way. For years, I was in the dark about what was happening to me, and then one day, the room became dimly lit. What I wanted was closure but instead I found that there were more questions than there were answers. I learned that I had to change my perceptions on what closure meant to me and in this case it meant accepting that chronic illness was now a part of my life. One of the things that I do know is that I am not alone and that there were so many exceptional people who, like me, are looking for closure, answers and normalcy. I share my experiences because I want to live a “normal” life and I want others to see that it is okay to have a normal life and to keep dreaming, trying, believing and looking towards the future. I write about my life with RA and FMS, my diagnosis, and my quest to find answers and I continue to do so because when it gives others hope it gives me hope too. I have found through my experience and the experiences of others dealing with the same conditions that living with arthritis and/or an autoimmune disease gets easier even though the disease gets harder. RA and FM may control how I physically feel but they do not control who I am or how I choose to respond. It is never going to be easy and some days, the emotional part is worse than the physical but we all struggle with something and for me, it is RA and FM.

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6 Responses to To thine ownself be true

Penelope says:

February 28, 2013 at 5:34 am

4:32am. I woke for the same general reason. And saw your email. I have a huge decision to make. I don’t know what to do.
Thank you for your thoughts. Perfect timing.

Reply
- Lana says:
  
  February 28, 2013 at 11:50 am
  
  Good luck! We must be true to ourselves first and foremost.
  
  Reply
Dee says:

February 28, 2013 at 6:22 am

Amen. That’s the bottom line – to thine ownself be true. It is the only way to find happiness, peace and love of self. It dang sure isn’t always easy. YOU are the one to define yourself. Letting others do that is only setting yourself up for unhappiness.

Reply
- Lana says:
  
  February 28, 2013 at 11:50 am
  
  I only recently gave myself permission to feel this way. I am glad I did. Thanks for your kind words and supports.
  
  Reply
Melanie Bowman-Oie says:

February 28, 2013 at 2:46 pm

Wow, just got round to reading this and it couldn’t be more apt for a situation I am facing. I have been trying hard to be the old me for the sake of a friendship, but after a blow up this weekend, not with the friend, but with the friend’s husband who is very opinionated and only his opinion counts, I am finding that this is not the way I want to live and I am surprisingly OK with the fact that this may in the long term affect my friendship, but I want to be happy or sad on my terms and not someone else’s. Again, thank you for your insightful writings which never fail to inspire me.

Reply
- Lana says:
  
  February 28, 2013 at 2:53 pm
  
  You are welcome and thank you for your kind words. Sometimes, all you can do is be honest with yourself and not worry so much about the opinions of others. As for friendship, your friend has to be willing to be your friend even if her husband disapproves. Otherwise, that friendship may not be worth keeping or she may need to rethink her own situation.
  
  Reply