Be Authentic In Your Relationships
It’s difficult to feel connected to others when you aren’t being authentic. Beaton says you can access authenticity through vulnerability—shedding your armor and being willing to admit to what’s real for you.
It can be challenging to open up when you may not feel safe to. “Men are resistant to opening up because of what they’ve been told through the media and society and their parents and role models. Society says you’re not masculine if you open up and break down and cry,” Beaton says.
If you feel resistance to opening up, seek a safe space in the presence of someone you trust and ask for permission to share if you need to. Once you open up and begin to feel that it is safe to share, sharing will become natural for you and make possible deeper closeness with those you love.
Recognize What’s Already Available To You Now
“A lot of people fall into the trap of chasing or seeking something, living into future potential,” Beaton says. “The biggest catch is that they’re seeking something that is already within them. Where it stems from is a lack of self worth and a lack of self love.”
It’s compelling to think that you will feel happier when you attain something external—be it a material item or some measure of success. While it’s okay to have these things, you need to be honest with yourself about why you’re pursuing them. If it’s to fill a sense of emptiness within yourself, you won’t be able to fill it through these things.
Beaton says the cure to fill the inner void is to cultivate a deeper sense of self worth and self love. Recognize that you are whole and complete as you are, in your current life circumstances, and that nothing needs to change for you to be worthy. You have nothing to prove. Your worth exists independently of anything outside of you, and you do not need to seek it, because you could never lose it.
Want to go even deeper? Attend Beaton’s upcoming live event, Real Talk Summit, with guest speaker Gary Vaynerchuk to pull back the curtain on entrepreneurship about what it takes to succeed in business, make and impact and find fulfillment.
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This article originally appeared on Forbes.com
