To be or not to be...

I should start this chapter with Hamlet’s opening line “to be or not to…”. The question is really to be yourself, but, when was the last time you felt fully and genuinely yourself?

Give yourself a few minutes to travel throughout your life trying to keep with that question in mind, as you go through different stages and moments from your childhood to the present. I think the questions are always better than the answers, no matter how wise the latter might be. Questions always open portals, they keep you with a transcendent curiosity about your life and the experiences you are giving yourself. Dou you know how often my patients ask me “Doctor, is this what I’m feeling real love? Is this person the right one for me? I give my face of “Oh for God’s sake! if you don’t know what you feel who else might know? After some insistence I end giving up with a very simple explanation. You know you are really in love when you don’t mind about answering that question, and above all, when if you find yourself in a repetitive review of a list of reasons why that person you think to love suits you or not… you send the list down a mental toilet. This situation only illustrates how difficult it is sometimes for us to recognize what we feel, what we want and who we really are. The problem is not to have doubts about what we feel, it is even worse not to ask the question whether what we think we feel, or desire is genuine.

Try to remember a situation like this, in which you were not sure about how you felt for someone and then try to go through as many everyday situations as you wish: your work, the life you lead, the place where you live, what you do in your free time, the way you dress, the things you talk about, your social life, the people you relate to… How do you feel in each of these scenarios? Do you feel real, alive, passionate, congruent and connected to yourself?

Excerpt from the book Ser Uno Para Ser Dos by Tibaire Cristina Gonzalez