So What? Tips to Losing Inhibitions

It's a beautiful thing when you finally come to realize that what people think about you doesn't really matter. This year, my word for the year is "SO!"

One of the hugest problems I have personally always had is wanting to please others, and be liked by everyone. Oh, it's such an enslaving thing to live for peoples acknowledgments, because what happens is either of the following:

1. You become repressed- living in this existence where you hold back what you feel, want to say, want to do, because you feel that it will violate some unwritten code of behavior of what is appropriate and acceptable in society's eyes.

2. you become fake- you say one thing (usually what you think people want to hear, or what is "politically correct") and do another in secret or in hiding(especially when you feel no one is watching)

3. You become miserable- because you just aren't free. When you live to please others, to be approved of by others and be deemed acceptable, you can never be free. You will become miserable, because you want to do all these things, but you are worried about what people will think of you. You want to speak out your mind, but you don't want to meet disapproving eyes or be ridiculed or dismissed.

4. You judge others- because you feel that you are judged, you judge others, you sneer upon those who are "free". You hate those who do what they want, who are not held back by inhibitions. You can't stand those who speak their mind, swear, curse, and act "inappropriately".

5. You become resentful- you get resentful at the world because you feel it has somehow robbed you of your dreams and desires. You see, you want to let loose but you cant so you hate, you hate your parents, your friends, your workmates, and your world! Not because they have done anything wrong to you as such, but because you cannot be yourself, because you cannot be free, because you CHOOSE not to BE!

SO what? So what if your workmate decides to hate you because you have spoken your mind about how you feel? If what he is doing hurts your feelings, instead of being quiet and miserable and resentful towards him, let it go, tell him how you feel! It will not only free you, but it might make him see you aren't the push over he thinks you are.

So what? If you want don't like the service you are getting in that restaurant, let them have it. Who knows, it might actually help improve their service!

If you don't like how your husband is treating you, tell him! Tell him you aren't a bloody doormat. No, you are not useless, no you are not ugly, no you are not damn, and no he is not better than you. Don't let anyone label you demeaning names and just take it in and meditate upon it later and embrace it!

I have come to realize slowly, with a lot of observation and keenness, that most of our fears are not real, only imagined and exaggerated by fear. In most cases, you will not get fired if you speak your mind (respectfully of course), you will not die if you dance and you are a bad dancer, no one really is watching to see how ugly you think you look in those jeans, no, the world will not end if you strike up a conversation with that man or woman. And you certainly won't make more enemies than usual if you stick up for yourself.

In fact I have noted with amusement, that people who speak their minds, no matter how inappropriate always seem to have more people want to be around them. I think it frees people to have someone speak out what they are afraid to say and too chicken to admit to.

One of my greatest challenges as I move forward will be to lose my inhibitions! It will be my most interesting and exciting journeys of all. Already I am experiencing the joy of living for me and not caring what people think, and it's freeing, so freeing!

A fellow human beings opinion of you, I have come to realize, can never diminish your value as a human being unless you let it! No one can make you lose your mind, only until you embrace and internalize their words and make them the "gospel" truth in your own mind.

I have also learnt with great relief, that people who judge others, are totally deep down insecure, hateful, spiteful people who get off on making others feel bad about them! So when they start talking nowadays I smile because it's really pathetic. I mean, why it should matter how another person lives their lives, as long as they are happy with it.

Even Jesus said "do not judge" its one of the commandments, if one of those judging, self righteous, sanctimonious, "holier than thou" attitude people care to read! People like to hide their judgments behind religion and 'right and wrong' beliefs, but its funny how conveniently they forget that the same Jesus they so quickly quote in their judgments, also said "do not judge" And there is a reason between correction and judgment, because correction is born in LOVE while judgment is born out of MALICE!

There is nothing a fellow human being can do to your life unless you let them. can anyone by talking about you or lying about you, or being mean to you, add a strand of hair to your head, or add or less a year off your life? Come on, no one has that power except God, LIVE!

So today I say SO WHAT? To anyone who doesn't like how I live my life, what I believe in, what I wear, what I do with my life. It's my life and I live with the consequences of what I do or do not do!

Be your best self!
Mwendwa Mbaabu