Know Thy Self

If you knew who you were you would not self destruct. ~ Fidel Rodriguez

This weekend I was at an event to bring young people together with musicians to create a CD about Oneness and to speak out against racism, sexism and other -isms. The day was quite powerful and was put on by the LA Human Relation Commission, the Oneness Foundation and Divine Forces Radio (www.zerohour.com/projectonela).

Fidel Rodriguez, from the LA Human Relations Commission and Divine Forces Radio, stood up and spoke about knowing who we are and where we come from. With that came the quote above. It was so true and powerful, it sent chills down my spine. For so long in my life, I did not know who I was and the result was constant self sabotage. As a child, I grew up to bicultural parents (Italian and American) and while it was a beautiful mix, it resulted in a lot of confusion for me, until I was ready to face it and accept who I am. Though I was born American, I never felt at home here as my values always seemed to be more in alignment with Italian and European values. Yet, when I traveled to Italy, I was clearly not Italian, I was the little loved American with the funny accent, because I wasn't able (and still am not ;) to roll my "R's." To add further to my own confusion, I grew up in a Jewish community and really all I wanted was to fit in and be like others. And while I was welcomed into the community - going to synagogue, seders and other Jewish events, I still was not Jewish. It left me confused and conflicted, but the funny thing was, it wasn't until more recently that I realized that it was the source of so much of my inner conflict.

My forms of self destruction were too many to list. They came in forms of my own direct doing and then indirectly in the forms of many different illnesses over many years. It was not until I started to truly look myself in the mirror and deeply explore who I was that I began to feel relief and inner peace. It has been a long journey, but it is really worth it. It is worth the suffering, pain and self destruction of so many years, to be finally in a place of self awareness and TRUTH. That is the key: that we live our TRUTH, speak our TRUTH and be our TRUTH. It is that plain and simple.

How are you living your truth? Do you find yourself living out of alignment and if so, in which ways are you self-destructing? How can you get on a path of living your TRUTH so as to alleviate your inner conflicts? What if you could live a more authentic and true life? Find the ways in which you can do so and start today! You may begin to find that the real you is pretty amazing and cool after all.