Journaling Feeling Lost or Like An Imposter

If I try to mirror someone else path, then I am only partially alive. - Marylou Falstreau

Sometimes, we simply realize that, somewhere along the way, we got lost...we lost some important part of ourselves.  We lost in the midst of many little choices that chipped away at our identity and we hardly noticed until, suddenly, we did notice.  Of course, we needed to change some things about ourselves, for purposes of maturation.  Just that we are noticing means that we have not completely lost ourselves.  Many times we may have given up parts of ourselves for unworthy people, places and things.  Of course, there was regret, but there was also change, for the good.  We acknowledged and we circled back and retrieved the important parts of our personality, our sense of Self.  

In relationships, we give up some of Self in order to become WE.  Slowly the 'WE' can take  over the 'I', and bit by bit we are no longer feeling autonomous.  I have heard many women, who were stay at home moms, talk about their husband's profession as if it were theirs.  Many of us stayed in soul-sucking relationships because, somehow, we could not give up hope on someone else changing, when we needed to change ourselves.  Let's face it.  We have to learn a skill before we can use it and some of us did not have the skills, the support, the way, out.  We, bit by bit, can tolerate behaviors in ways we would never have done, if we were able to stay strong in our sense of Self. 

Many of us have given away people, places and things that we should have kept.  We have lost memories, photos, friends, family, and have lost much in order to maintain what we believed we had to do.  We let people, places things be more valuable to us than they should have been.  

Sometimes regret slips in, sometimes a numbness.  Sometimes we have shrugged our shoulders and said, "It is gone, so forget it!" We conditioned ourselves to take care of others before ourselves and , in that, lost more of ourselves.  Some of us, in realizing what we had done, slipped into anger, into resentfulness, into an overwhelming sense of guilt that we chose to feel, rather than fix what we needed to, for ourselves, and regained some sense of the authentic 'I'.  

Some of us lost faith in our still small voice within.  We become afraid to ask us the important questions and come up with authentic answers for ourselves.  Some adopted fake sense of self as if it had not all mattered.  We have had to relearn to listen to our own intuitions and not let others come up with their answers for us. Some of us are so gentle and soft inside but we learned to portray a hardness that we think is strength; personal strength.   We become mere actors in our own lives.  

Sometimes we need to stop and ask ourselves what we really need.  Sometimes we need to express what we really need.  We need to set boundaries and keep them.  Then, we need to hold ourselves accountable for our actions and reactions from the core of Self.  It is imperative, that, in the end, what we leave this earth with, is our authentic soul.  We may have lost some really awesome parts of self, and donned the costume of who we think others think we should have been, should be, will be.  

Sometime is 'nevertime'.  The Present is the time.  Do not accept the 'ImposterSelf.'  Work towards regaining your true whole, healthy, Self.  Acceptance is the first huge step. Be who you meant to be all along.  It is time.

How can you express this ideology in an art journal page?  I chose to do a page on my imposter self, expressing that I thought I was somewhere above myself, not my reality at all.  Oh, there were glimpses, as you see in this art journal page.   But, sometimes, rising above what I was, means I have learned to look at how I present myself.  Can you express how you feel about this topic?

You can.  It is time!

©Carol Desjarlais 9.9.15