“To Thine Own Self Be True”

That line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet struck me at my core the first time I remember hearing it from the stage. I had liked Shakespeare from the moment I was assigned the memorization of “Sonnet 116,” but this line may have cemented my devotion.

“To thine own self be true.”

A command. An imperative. A plea from a father to a son, laced with the hope that this will carrying the son to the correct places, even if the father cannot be there with him. For those reasons alone, it is a powerful statement.

But then you turn it on yourself and you measure yourself against the question of whether YOU are happy with how you are living, and it becomes another thing entirely. Are you being true to the self that you envision(ed)? It becomes a mirror and a sieve through which the minutia of masking and the trials of growing up are revealed for what they truly are. You find that, while many of those things have stuck to the ribs of who you are and helped make up the meat of you, there is so much that has created a layer of unhelpful, unappealing fat.

No need to panic or fall into a dismal spiral. You have agency. You control what comes next for you. You are the keeper of that intention, that internal spark that fueled your childhood and teenhood dreams. Sure, there are parts that have died wicked and terrible deaths. There are parts of those dreams that will never live again but that doesn’t meant that the spirit of that deep intention is gone. If you can still feel it, it still lives. So, quit lamenting what cannot be. Reach for the thing that feels the closest to it. Not a settling for second best. Instead, by continuing to measure what you put your hands to against what feels true to your soul’s intention you will edge closer and closer to that more perfect alignment.

When I was deciding on which course to set my life, I just knew that I wanted to be in the medical field. I set out to be a nurse and then a doctor. I was happy and determined. But the closer I got to the finish line, the more my panic attacks and anxiety grew. Something was off. I bailed and I spent a long time feeling like a failure because of it.

I have done so, SO many things since then. I tried on all sorts of skins looking for the one that would fit. But rarely did I take into account what my heart had yearned to do from the start. I wanted to help create wellness in people’s minds and bodies. Now, somehow, I am back in the wellness world. Truly, I could not be more delighted. The information flows easily into my mind. The desire to learn is at my fingertips constantly. And because of all of those aforementioned skins, I have a broader perspective on the world. Hopefully, I have been perfectly timed to help my contemporaries and those that come after me to think more holistically about how to care for their minds and bodies.

To Thine Own Self Be True.
….And don’t stop searching until you find out what that means to you. It is where the ease lives.