Reading "The Courage to Be Yourself"

People read books to understand themselves, their future, their society, and the people around them. People read books through their need of searching. I read books because I want to escape from the thoughts that often plague me. The common thoughts shared by all people- adequacy, expectations, and should statements adapted through present and past circumstances. The reality is that I read to run away and yet try to understand what I run away from. I am a person.

Currently, I am reading a book that, if you asked my earlier 20 self, she would be aghast at. It is a self-help book. It is a self-help book that requires one to either truly consider the complexities of herself or lets the woman just read without too much forethought. (Yes, it is a book for women.) Having picked up this book is what has really surprised me. It felt just the same as when someone addicted admits their addiction- yes, I have a problem. In my case, it is self-admonishment, unrealistic expectations, and self-delivered consequences through headaches and self-imposed cruelty. I have admitted I have a problem, and in many ways, it is like a drug; an almost 20 year habit that one depends on to keep "improving."

This book mainly asks something simple- to reflect and be honest. Easy to do but hard to apply. This skill is not foreign to someone who has taught in various circumstances to variously aged students for the last nine years. It is a common tool used in effective teaching. The difference lies in that as a teacher, we reflect on lesson plans, relationships, circumstances, and essentially how to adapt and modify a lesson to better help students. When it comes to actively applying it to one's self, it becomes infinitely more difficult. Compare it to a guard policing ones thoughts constantly. Freedom becomes limited through trying to change a reinforced habit that use to exist quietly repeating itself. That constraint makes one feel uncomfortable and more accurately, semi-trapt. Thus, the goal's crux is application.

Reading this book is a test of character and determination. To work through it, exercising its golden informative nuggets, and continue reading will be a feat that should be written about. This is not just applicable to myself, an almost-turned-30 internationally traveling teacher and artist, but to anyone who truly sits down with their demons with resolution to, in blunt terms, slay the dragon. Good luck, courage, and strength to women who are undertaking the same task. I know I will need it.