Overcoming the Fear of Who We Are and Finding Our Most Magnetic Qualities

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Who we really are is sometimes one of those most terrifying things for us to come to terms with. In fact sometimes when we look back at our lives, we realize we’ve done just about everything in an effort to have people who approve of us. Yet, what’s strange is that this has the opposite effect.  If anything, going down that route makes us really fake.  Fear of what people will think  of the “real you” is something that can be hard to accept.  After all, what if somebody doesn’t like the “real you.” We all want to be liked.  But maybe having a true fan of the “real you” is significantly better than somebody who kind of likes the person you are trying to be.

In college I went through a phase where I decided to experiment with not giving a shi#$3 what anybody thought. Strangely I found myself feeling better, having much more enjoyable interactions with people, etc, etc. Then my roommate decided to have a talk with me about the fact my “new leaf” was really not going over well with people.  The funny thing is that there was little evidence of this and looking back I realized that people will feel threatened when you start to make changes that are better for you, but might impact your relationship with them.

Charisma is an interesting thing. It’s something that I feel like I’ve been trying to achieve forever, and maybe that’s exactly the problem. The other day I got an email from my friend Ashley at The Middle Finger Project telling me after our interview that I was charismatic. Funny, considering I’ve been on this journey of self help largely in an effort to become charismatic and fix all my “issues”.  But again, maybe that’s the problem. I’ve spent alot of time trying to become charismatic.  People might say that you aren’t born with charisma, its’ something you have to develop. But that’s bullsh#$#. Everybody is born charismatic. My best friend’s 2 year old daughter is extremely charismatic. She can sing drinking songs to an audience of 4 with a smile, will tear apart rooms, and do this all smiling and laughing.  But something happens throughout this thing called life that seems to get in the way.

How we Lose Our Charisma

Critics: Critics always emerge no matter what you are doing. For everything you succeed at or even fail at there will be critics.  They will make their observation, which often is a negative one and then keeping moving through life looking for other opportunities to criticize people. While it’s easy to be influenced by them, let’s not forget that while you are “making it” they are going to be out criticizing. So, really how they effect you is a choice.

Naysayers: Naysayers are worse than critics and in all honesty some of the most toxic people in our world. They will continually tell you why you won’t succeed and why your idea sucks, etc, etc. But, if you spend enough time around these people eventually they will destroy your natural charisma because you’ll be hearing this over and over again from them.

Social Programming: Social programming is perhaps one of the most detrimental mind viruses in our society. From time we turn on the TV to watching our first TV commercial we are being programmed to have certain responses to the world around us. Feel bad? Buy this, eat this,  and you’re sold a bunch of bullsh#$# about it making you feel better or even worse it producing the end result you are after.

If you have ever seen the movie Twins, it’s interesting to note that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character is extremely charismatic, but has never been exposed to anything but books, and a somewhat sheltered upbringing on a beautiful island. Imagine a culture where they don’t even have words for some of the problems we create in our day to day life.

Getting back to our most magnetic qualities

Presence: As I have gone through The Power of Now over and over again, I’ve started to the come to the realization that almost every issue we have stems from lack of presence. In a state of presence all of the worst things cease to exist. To add to that, presence results in a natural occurrence of the  magnetism within each of us.

Imperfection: A while back I wrote about the difference between success and perfection. Perfection is another those things that we have made up, assigned meaning to and what’s even more ridiculous is that it means something to different to everybody. So why in the hell are we trying be perfect? That would be like trying to match the ideals of every single person on that planet through your actions which would not only be impossible but completely insane. Embracing imperfections and learning to turn our our weaknesses into strengths will also bring out our most magnetic qualities.

Detachment: Enlightened people say that attachment results in suffering. In a state of presence however it’s impossible to be attached to anything because attachment is about an outcome which is something that occurs in the future.   By detaching from outcomes, our interactions becoming more genuine and thus we radiate our most magnetic qualities.

The more we can learn to detach from what people think, live in the moment accept who we really are the better of we’ll ultimately be.