Imagine being able to completely accept who we are, to never experience moments of despair that we will never be what we believe we 'ought' to be. To never torment ourselves with accusations of why we are not thinner, more attractive, more popular, more witty, more successful, more...anything but who we are. Imagine being able to be oblivious of ourselves, to just live, taking on challenges and experiencing failures with equal aplomb. Imagine having unmitigated presence - when we walk into a room, we are noticed simply because we are radiating something that everyone craves. Contentment. Acceptance. Peace.
Imagine being able to move forward to embrace life and everything it has to offer, leaving our 'idealised' images behind to watch us do what we believed we never could without 'changing'. Imagine leaping and bounding into the world to embrace both success and failure knowing that these experiences are just part of our unique experience of being alive, with none of it defining who we are.
Imagine that we would make some wonderful discoveries, that we would be surprised to find that we would no longer be interested in focussing on how others perceive us or wasting our time and energy on dressing to impress - rather we would choose to wear what we like. Our choice of garments would not define us, but complement us. We would only buy what we needed, no longer feeling subjected to the painful and costly addiction of 'want'. We would never look at a clever marketing campaign and believe that lasting contentment could be found by spending two weeks at an exclusive beach house on the coast of Bali. We would no longer be possessed by our possessions. Rather those things would merely be part of our lives to perform a function, not to represent who we wanted others to believe we were.
Unlike the photo above of the poor rhino trying to become a unicorn, we would know ourselves and accept ourselves just as we are, being simultaneously aware of both our strengths and weaknesses. We would know that so long as we refuse to accept ourselves just as we are, we will not be able to fully enjoy life, or even know what we like or do not like with any certainty. We will have ripped down the image taped to the walls of our minds of who we are not and replaced it with an image of who we are, an honest, true, beautiful image of us in all our wonder.
Each and every one of us are utterly unique with our own set of towering strengths and humbling weaknesses, and this uniqueness makes us amazing, and interesting, and special. We are much more spectacular and complex than anything we could ever imagine we ought to be. When we rip away the image we have been holding in our mind's eye of who we should be and replace it with who we really are, we stop the cycle of torture, accusations, blame and self-hate against the wonderful person huddling deep inside of us that just wants to live.
Imagine a life unmarred by the manipulations of magazines, advertisements and gossip columns - a life uncomplicated by the continual uncertainty the media doles out to us. Imagine living a life without constant and unnecessary material hunger, a life that allows us to find true fulfillment just by being the astounding individual each one of us already is. That life is right there, a mere heartbeat away, reaching out to us from behind the glass wall we have imprisoned it behind...
Imagine letting go of the person you are not. Imagine that the real you is free...
Just imagine...