“Everything you need you already have.
You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person,
not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else.
Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced
in your thoughts as your own personal reality.”

– Wayne Dyer

Summary

• This post is about a 4 Minute Read
• Escape the Story: “Who I’m Supposed to Be”
• Try This
• Resources & Suggested Readings

Escaping the Story

The best thing my wife has ever said to me…

“You already are that man.”

I have always longed to be someone people respect.

Not someone they want to be like because of his charisma or success.
Not someone they respect because he is on stage leading the charge and becoming a “big deal.”

I have always longed to be someone that makes people feel safe with. Someone that makes them feel welcome. Someone that sees them and helps them feel at home.

I even have an image of this man in my mind.

The person I want to become is an older man, in his 60s or 70s. His wrinkles and tough skin make it so he doesn’t even really look like me.

The main thing is, he is calm.

He seems wise. Like an old mind grown from years of experience coupled with a young heart, still ready to play and enjoy the beauty of the world around them.

He is undeterred by shocking revelations, dramatic occurrences, or even harsh critiques. He simply nods his head and rolls with the punches.

He feels like an old grandpa who could hug you or thump you and either way you would know you were seen, known, and loved greatly.

This is the man I have always wanted to become and one particular week, I had made choices that he would never make, ruined opportunities, and generally just felt like a scumbag.

I had failed the man I wanted to be.

So I sat there crying like a preteen sharing this with my wife. And with zero pity, concern, or tenderness in her voice, she looked at me and said,

“You already are that man.
The only one that doesn’t see it is you.”

If you are anything like me, you probably have an image of the person you want to be hidden somewhere in the recesses of your mind. Perhaps it has been buried under the mounds of shit you have to deal with on a daily basis.

Bills.
Broken shower heads.
Crammed schedules.
Getting an oil change.
Seeing the Doctor about that mole.
Bills.
Children screaming over nothing.
Lack of sleep.
Fading clothes.
Bills.
Asshole bosses.
Difficult coworkers.
Conflict with your significant other over something VERY stupid.
Keeping the house clean
And did I mention bills?

Maybe you have buried that person.

Maybe they were too wide-eyed, too hopeful, too much of a dreamer, and so you stamped them out just to survive the next day.

No matter the factors that brought us here, we often feel as if the gap between who we are and who we want to be is so vast, we have lost sight of how to even move in the right direction.

And that only makes the gap wider.

My friend,

If you will allow me, I would like to remind you of a simple fact that, like me, you may have forgotten.

You already are that person that you want to be.

He already lives inside you.
She always has.

Life is really not about becoming someone. It’s not a linear progression toward this fairy tale ending where the best you finally bursts forth, all is made right with the world, and everything from that point forward will be easy and full of success.

That’s bullshit.

The truth is, life is difficult. And day after day after day of struggling with the difficulties makes us reactive.

We react to our screaming children.
We react to our unreasonable bosses.
We react to our irrational significant other.

We react because we are tired, but reactions rarely reflect our true feelings.

Responding, however, often displays our inner values, our inner persona, much better than reacting.

So what if you told yourself today and every day,

“I already am that person”

What if rather than reacting to a given problem or situation,
you instead reminded yourself of who you are,
evaluated how that person would respond to this,
and then allowed that to guide you?

The real Kurtis is not easily affected by mean or ignorant people on social media. So rather than engaging in a pointless argument because they said something rude, when I remind myself of who I am, I am able to respond with

“Thank you for your feedback” or
“I understand your position” or best of all…

hitting the like button.

You already are the person you long to become.
But…

You are still learning.

We are all still learning.

We are always learning.

Blessings on the journey, my friend. You are not alone.

Try This

In recovery, they advise people to keep a journal of their day including interactions, accomplishments, and shortcomings.

This is a GREAT practice however, many people do it wrong and it quickly becomes a defeating, self-deprecating exercise.

Those experienced with recovery and mental health practices will tell you the list MUST be balanced.

For every shortcoming or failure, you have to put a success or a virtue about yourself.

“I was impatient and unkind with my friend when she needed me”
is balanced with
“I care about caring for my friends, and that is an honorable virtue.”

“I was lazy and didn’t get out of bed until 10:00”
is balanced with
“I worked really hard on the group project in class today.”

Recognizing and uncovering the real you is a practice of the little things.

So write these things down!

Have a notebook somewhere nearby, in your nightstand, your coffee table, or get a tiny one like mine and keep it in your back pocket.

Start keeping a record of all the times and ways you lived up to the values of the real you.
Keep it balanced with the ways you didn’t (for humility sake), but never slip into an imbalance of negative.

This is a great place to start recognizing that the person you long to be already lives within you.

The rest is just practice.

Resources & Suggested Readings

• UnF*** Yourself by Gary John Bishop
• The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen
• Simple Ways to Have a Good Life with my Life Coach: James Scott Henson

Links for More

Life Coaching

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YouTube

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