This Is What Finding Yourself Really Looks Like, Because It’s Not As Easy As Instagram Tells You

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We have this innate idea that we are all lost – that we need to search for the true reason behind our existence. We try to understand what makes us feel alive, what inspires us, what our passions are.

Instead of letting things unfold naturally, we invest in this treasure hunt of soul searching – this idea that the more effort we put into “finding” ourselves, the faster we will grow into the person we are meant to be.

But, maybe we aren’t meant to look outward to find ourselves; maybe, finding yourself is truly learning to look within. Maybe, we are already inherently whole.

Our journey of self-discovery has become a mission to find our soul’s supposed missing pieces. To travel to new places, try new things, meet new people – distractions, if you will – to help us avoid feeling the hollowness that actually lives inside us all.

Finding yourself is not, actually, learning what makes you feel “alive.” It is not an adventure-seeking trek to uncover your given purpose.

Finding yourself is hard. It’s messy. It’s undesirable. Because when you truly find yourself, you learn to accept the pieces that you refuse to admit are part of you. It is seeing the rawness of your being. It is facing your flaws and loving yourself more for them. It is embracing the things about yourself that you try to deny because they make you feel inadequate.

The only way to truly find yourself is to let your inner self be.

It’s peeling back the layers you’ve built up for the world. It’s being comfortable with being uncomfortable. It’s embracing who you are unapologetically and not letting mindsets around you shift your own perception of bliss. It’s digging deep within rather than searching mindlessly in a foreign universe.

You find yourself by standing in front of the mirror and seeing more than what’s right in front of you. It’s when you embark on this long journey of self-discovery and realize that, all along, the destination is you, and it’s everything you were looking for.