I’m a private person. I struggle opening myself up to others. If you don’t personally know me, you would think that I have no problems talking about myself and letting everybody exactly how I feel. That’s only because I made this as a platform to do just that. I feel a lot of things and have a lot of thoughts and ideas. I live in two different worlds: the world that is real and the world that is in my head. I would love to just let everything flow from my brain to my mouth, but I can’t all the time. I take the expression, “think before you speak” to the extreme.
I tend to get fixated on the idea of being liked by everybody. I can’t help it, I live for harmony. I think that the more that I open up, the more that a person knows about me, and potentially, the more for that person to judge me negatively. I am hardly ever the person that can walk up to somebody and just start talking.
“What if I reveal too much about myself? What if I say something that they don’t agree with? Will they not like me? Oh no, what if they don’t like me.”
So I close myself off and throw up my walls. If you don’t know anything about me, then you have no reason to not like me. That’s the mindset. What I’ve realized over the past year or so is that being closed off does not equal control. People are going to think what they want to think, regardless of what I do. Putting up walls so high that nobody can enter is just a defense mechanism for my insecurities.
Embrace Yourself
I have to remind myself that nobody else’s opinions matter. The worst thing in the world is self doubt. As I said in another piece, self doubt is a silent killer that takes no prisoners. I have to constantly remind myself that I am that dude. Sometimes I have to get real big on the positive self talk and remind myself that any person would be lucky to know me and what I bring to the table.
As of recently, I am really emphasizing opening up and allowing the real, authentic me to show, flaws included. No, I am not a completely different version of myself. No, I don’t introduce myself to every person I meet. But I’m taking baby steps. I’ll take the lead in a conversation. Maybe I say what’s up to the person sitting next to me in class, little things that get me to open up, you know?
As minute as this seems, I’ve started to show off and embrace my music taste. Out of fear that people wouldn’t like my music, I would only play music that I knew other people would like, not music that I was actually listening to, even in my own car.
“If they don’t like my music, then they must not like me, right?” That’s how I used to think.
Look, nobody can connect with you if you don’t allow them to. To allow others to connect with you, you have to be able to offer something to connect upon. The easiest way is to just be yourself and embrace you for you. Talk about what you like, talk about what you don’t like, just be you. At the end of the day, if you open up to someone and still no connection is made, then it’s simply not meant to be. But at least you made an effort and can say that you were true to yourself and they just didn’t like you for you. Then on to the next.
You see where I’m getting at? Opening up and being yourself is not even about other people. It’s about accepting yourself and being comfortable with who you are. It’s about showcasing yourself rather than hiding. And even a small thing like sharing your favorite songs allows others to come in and learn about you. That’s what I am chasing right now, to understand myself and be understood by others. In order to make that happen, I have to accept who I am so that I can put out the real me for the world to see. Don’t be afraid, bump that song even if you are the only one who is feeling it…
*Side Note: there is definitely a line in terms of opening up too much and not opening up enough. On one hand, it’s nice to be a little mysterious, to have people guessing. There is nothing wrong with that. I actually think it adds a lot to a person’s character. It keeps others intrigued and curious about you. Instead of answering every question about yourself, let the imagination of others fill in the answers. Who doesn’t love a good mystery, right?
In all honesty, I do not need more than a handful of people to know everything about me. Some things should be kept to yourself or your small circle, because there are a scary amount of people who will take advantage of your vulnerability. My rule is to be an open book, cover to cover, to the people that love me. For my Day 1’s, I drop my walls, and send an open invitation. Anybody else still gets the real me, but they don’t need to know everything, you feel me?
