Dear Alex:

You wrote that you often feel split, having two sides that battle each other. One side is the “self aware side” and the other is the “old me”, the one “waaay too agreeable and live my life through the eyes of others”

You asked at the end of your post: “What problems stop you from being yourself? How do you overcome them?”

My answer to you: the “old me” side, the one you wish wasn’t there and would like to get rid of, this is an authentic side of you, as it is in my case and in any other person. Here is my explanation of this statement: we are social animals at birth, born to live in a group, and therefore we can’t help but care about what other people think about us, how others in our social group (humans we interact with) perceive us. We can’t help but want others to like us.

It is not different from other social animals. If an animal in a social group is perceived as a threat, other members of the group will chase it away, exclude the individual, and that means likely death for the individual.

The key is choice and balance: choose your group whenever possible, who you interact with, in what contexts, for what purpose and evaluating such for better future choices and accept that you care to be liked and well thought of and at the same time see that the behaviors on your part aiming at being liked are not distressing you, that you are okay with that behavior.

My way of overcoming this conflict you presented, that split, is in understanding that fundamentally, there is no split. There is no conflict once you understand both sides are authentic, inborn.

anita