To the Misunderstood: Look Within, and Face Your Truth with Optimism

Have you ever felt misunderstood? So much so that you feel people in your life avoid you like a contagious virus? Been there, noticed that. So if you are in this discombobulating predicament, how do you solve it? Do you blame every single one of those people, attributing their obvious aversion to you to their own shortcomings? Do you blast them with vicious slurs in order to feel better?

If you have taken the above track, how is it working for you? Did your piss-rant affect positive change or are things still status quo?

The best way to figure out why you feel left out and taken wrongly is to look within, and to face your truth with optimism.

To the Misunderstood: Look Within, and Face Your Truth with Optimism

Listen to your own voice, your own soul. Too many people listen to the noise of the world, instead of themselves.

- Leon Brown

Eyes to the sky in crisis

Over the past few years, a serious health diagnosis allowed me the opportunity for intense self-reflection. When I first learned about the condition, I seriously lost it. At first I cycled through the stages of grief, fluctuating amongst shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, depression, reflection, loneliness, acceptance, and eventually hope.

I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.

- Carl Jung

However, as time passed I regrouped and found some stability mostly remaining in acceptance and hope. Determinedly, I decided to face all aspects of my personality full on, no matter how difficult. One of the most important decisions I made was to seek my truth. However, as time went by and I told my truth, those I thought were friends drifted away until I stood alone. The silence was deafening. In this deep, unending quietness, I faced myself, and came to terms with the true me. Over time, I learned that standing alone was not a bad thing.

Release all resentments

In order to rejuvenate my life, I needed to first cleanse and clear all illusions and delusions: I needed to love myself first. Louise Hay's book, You Can Heal Your Life, helped guide me in my first steps. In the book, she talks about cancer-causing negative emotions like resentments, and gave positive affirmations to help you heal. I did not follow her guidance to the letter, but felt the truth of her words.

Always one to assert my creativity and independence, I decided to forge my own path based on her ideas. I wrote all of my resentments out on a piece of paper and symbolically burned them over my kitchen sink. As the rancid smoke and blackened paper disintegrated before my eyes, I made an oath to release them forever. I washed the remnants down the kitchen sink, cleared the room with sage and meditated to ask for clarity and peace.

A calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that's very important for good health.

- Dalai Lama (more quotes)

Two years have passed since that moment, and I have come full circle in my healing and recovery. Burning and releasing my resentments was the best decision I ever made.

Find the courage to heal

If you are holding on to anger, grudges, jealousy, hate, or animosity, set them free. The longer you use these dark emotions as an anchor the further you drift from your light within; the longer you cling to these lower life conditions the closer you come to ill health. We are the constellation of all activity in our lives good and bad. Life is too short to spend time wedded to energy-sapping endeavors. Casting blame on others will not bring the resolutions you seek. If you see negative patterns constantly repeating themselves in your life, look in the mirror. Find the courage to reflect and connect the dots. Your environment is always a reflection of your truth.

Recharge and go forth

Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

- Carl Jung

Today, my status quo is harmony and peace. In finding the courage to face the reality of my truth with optimism, I recharged my life. You can do the same. We all have it within us to heal ourselves if we find the courage to seek it from within. Nowadays, I no longer worry about feeling misunderstood; I no longer worry about my solitude; I no longer blame others for my shortcomings.

Face your truth with optimism and set yourself free. The process to recharge your life will be long and arduous; it will take time and patience, but every up and down will eventually bring reward.

Here are a few tips to help face your truth:

1. Clear the inner negative chatter: Learn to decipher the voice of truth within. Respond to negative thoughts with positive and affirming ones.
2. Make room for solitude by finding time each day to go inward: When you first open your eyes is a good time to give thanks and to seal in the positive energy for the day. It prepares you for any ups and downs.
3. Read and watch uplifting and informative articles, books and videos: Once you make the decision to live in truth, supportive materials will appear to help guide you.
4. Stay honest: The only way to face your truth is by staying honest with yourself. Lying to yourself is self-defeating.
5. Surround yourself with positive and supportive people: If you are serious about facing your truth you will no longer tolerate energy vampires. People who absorb your energy will disappear. Those who are uplifting and supportive will stay.