Up Up and Away... From Believing You Aren't Who You Are

Some people have a very strong understanding of themselves. Not only in who they believe themselves to be but also in who they project to others. I'll be the first to admit this wasn't always me.

When I was in high school I had heard that big noses were unattractive and by some trick of the imagination I developed the perception that I had a big one. It developed into a pretty severe insecurity. No one I knew could tell me otherwise... I had a big nose and it was devastatingly upsetting... because it meant... I believed... I was ugly.  

On a beautiful high school day, standing in the middle of campus talking to a group of people, a girl whom I had known in elementary school, but not well, walked up to me, looked at my face and randomly said, "Your nose is very regal"... unprompted... straight up out of the blue! She followed up by saying that my nose was really beautiful. That was all it took. Two sentences. A stranger making the most random statement of positivity forever changed the way I looked at my nose and my face. No longer ugly. I had an understanding that my face looked regal and beautiful. 

Throughout my history an outside perspective is all it takes for some reframing and restructuring. The reason being: Often others can see you more clearly than you can see yourself... and... people who don't have any pre-conceived dynamics with you (ie. strangers) are coming at you from a place of new, clear, and clean vision that makes their word somehow more honest, real, and trustworthy. 

That's not to say that someone else's understanding of you dictates who or how you should be. But understanding that you might not be seeing what you are presenting is a great way to understand if you are showing what you believe or what you believe you should believe. Sometimes (or always) we need someone outside of our normal context to tell us that we aren't what we perceive... that we can try something... that we can be as awesome as we think we are... that we are just right the way we are.

We need someone in the crowd to lift us off the ground and take us where we want to go.  We need someone else to break us out of the cocoon so we can spread out wings and fly off. Find your stranger today and ask the question you want the answer to.