Last week I was musing here about the national conversation about essential services. There are of course the obvious essential services, that meet our physical needs. But the more I reflect on this, the more for me this is about what it is that really allows us to be fully human and to thrive and not just survive. To know who you truly are, to know what sustains that identity, and to be walking in your identity.
What is it that makes you YOU?
What is it that allows you to fully express who you are as a person?
You are a unique and amazing individual, precious and dearly loved because of
WHO you are.
You have a unique set of skills, strengths, personality characteristics, life experiences and passionate motivators.
Referring back to Abram Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the top of his triangle of needs is what he calls self-actualisation. In his Theory of Human Motivation, Maslow says this:
What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization……the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.
Two things strike me here.
Firstly, the need for deep, respect-filled connections.
Last week saw me celebrating a milestone birthday. Because of lockdown, none of the original celebrations can at present take place. But MB and my Nearest-and-Dearest, along with key co-conspirators my sister and a very dear friend, planned, schemed and facilitated the most amazing collection of messages from friends and family. Each message expressed something of what I mean to that individual.
As I read and re-read these messages – through many tears – what I want more than anything is to see these precious folk. Whether it is a message from someone I have known all my life, or a more recent friend, it is clear that an essential service that allows me to be fully me is connection with people who let me be myself and love me for who I am. People who respect and value me for what I have to offer this life, and who I value and respect, learn from and am inspired by. This is where my self worth, and desire to grow and contribute come from: other people seeing and valuing me for who I am and what I do. And making time for this is more important than anything else.
Secondly, to live up to the person they see in me.
This has been the second extraordinary gift to me in those wonderful messages, especially as I have been considering here what it is that allows us to be fully who we are.
Because I don’t always behave, feel or respond as the person that is described in these messages. I can reflect back on a day and only see the negatives of who I am.
But having so many precious folk speak out what they see as the best of me inspires me to choose each day to walk in that identity.
What about you?
Who would others describe you as? What allows you to thrive as the best of yourself? How do you connect with the people who bring out the best in you and inspire you to be even more?
If this is a struggle for you to get to grips with, and the negative voices are shouting louder than the positives, then sign up to do The 10 Things Challenge here and I will see you at the end and help you walk into the wonderfulness of who you are!
But this week know this:
You are a unique and amazing individual. You make an important contribution to the lives of those around you because you are YOU. You can choose to be walking in your identity each day.
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[…] be. To walk in the identity you have – whether you have a faith basis for that or not. I was musing on that here last week; what it means to choose each day to think, behave and respond as the best version of ourselves in […]