The"fake it till you own it" trick

It is amazing how much of our lives and happiness is based on how we perceive. As I get older, I am less ticklish. I also am not afraid of needles or pain. Perhaps Liquid Strength has something to do with it, but I have learned to have a lot more "say" about how my body perceives stimuli. Even the emotional kind.

We get to choose how we experience our lives, our selves and the people around us. "Truth is the daughter of time" is my favorite quote. It allows me to sit back and let myself and those around me "figure it out". Justice, honesty and good will reveal themselves with time. False fronts will slip away and show their cracks.

In my work, I get to have intense personal connections with such a wide range of people. Even the physical boundaries of our society are not relevant in what I do. I can't count how many times in a day I reach out and put my hands on my students/clients bodies and move them into position. The places I normally touch would be beyond inappropriate in any other setting.

Perception forms our "truth". That truth will be different when viewed through someone else's eyes. Insecurity, fear and confidence in most adults are based in their perceptions of themselves, their bodies and their belief system of how they themselves are perceived. Some of the most beautiful people I know, are deeply insecure. The attention and pressure that they feel can be daunting. Many of my more famous clients suffer the most from this pressure. What I have noticed is that they have a kind of "persona" that they slip on when viewed by the "public". This persona is part protection, part costume and only partially based on reality.

The ability to project the image they wish the world to see is a gift. It allows them to "be" that image in many ways. I call this the"fake it till you own it" trick. Our posture, our aura and our "presence" all send a message to the world. More importantly, they send a message to us. The more we feel that we are something special and "worthy", the more we become just that.

Vanity and ego are the exact opposite of true confidence. They are "needy". A person who believes in their worth, does not need the attention of everyone around them. The irony is that such a person will get just that.

My son asked me while back, "Mommy, what is it to be cool?". That gave me pause. I had to think about it a while. Sometimes it seems (through our teenage perception) that "cool" can mean aloof, apathetic or even mean. What I told him is this "being cool is when you don't need anyone else to think you are cool, because YOU think you are".

We all have so much to give. There are opportunities for kindness and generosity throughout our day. The better we feel about ourselves and the less time and energy we waste on insecurity, the more we have to give to the world. Just like training our bodies, we can train our minds. We can begin to change the dialogue in our brains from "I am so fat/old/ugly/stupid" to "I perfectly embody myself". "I have so much to give the world". "There is so much power within me". We can all "Fake it till we own it". There is a grain of truth in nearly every statement. Nurturing the grains of truth that we want to believe and to be, is the most important job we have. We all have the power to change ourselves, our lives and the world. All we need to do is begin.

Story von Holzhausen