If you’ve prefer to listen to this blog post, click on the play button below.

Labels and categories help us organize people, places, and things.
Titles help us arrange ourselves within a group based on experience and tenure.
Structure, expectations, and boundaries provide guidelines for how we interact with one another.
Our family of origin and upbringing offer another form of rules and agreements to abide by.

And then there’s the media we consume that tells us:
– how we ‘should’ dress
– what we ‘should’ eat
– how we ‘should’ style our hair
– how we ‘should’ decorate and manage our home
– how we ‘should’ take care of our family
– and even how we ‘should’ practice yoga

All of this information is helpful, and at the same time, very limiting to the point we start to feel confined. Basically, we’re being forced to fit within society’s tiny perfectly formed box. And this box hinders us more than we realize.

– It tampers with our self-expression.
– It limits how we show up in the world.
– It forces us to play the game of life small and safe.
– It strips away our individual qualities and gifts.
– It dims our sense of curiosity and childlike wonder.
– It demands that we conform.

Being ok with bending the rules or completely breaking them by going against the grain is ok. It’s scary, I know. Because it’s unknown and unfamiliar. But it is doable.

What’s one thing you always feel obligated to do or say but really don’t want to?
What’s a behavior or pattern that feels inauthentic to you but you do it anyway?

It’s okay to ‘defy what is’ to reclaim a strong sense of self by unsubscribing from all of the things you ‘should’ do. There’s so much freedom and spaciousness available when you step outside that tiny little box.

If you’d like to unsubscribe from society’s demands, buy my latest book Love Thyself, First + Always and feel free to be your authentic self.