Please, be the real you. If you know that I am a Holistic Health Consultant, Reiki Teacher, and self-published author, you might be tempted not to talk to me at all. A lot of opening conversations stop right at the “What do you do for a living?” point because no one knows what to say after that. One simple reason for that could be that they are trying to frame a response that they think will make them acceptable to the person they’re talking to. If we do this enough times successfully we run the risk of becoming one of our own characters. We can become someone our own mothers do not recognize. Someone that is a pale imitation of who we really are.

So when you meet a holistic health consultant, don’t pretend that you don’t love chocolate because you think they’ll approve of you more. If there comes a point in the conversation when it’s your turn to insert an opinion that is true for you, and risky if you’re only looking for approval, take it. Why? Why all the emphasis on being yourself?

Because if you are only liked for the responses that met their approval, and you’re holding your true self back, they don’t really like you. They never got the chance to like you. They never got the chance to get to know you because you never presented them with the real you.

So please, be the real you. I really appreciate getting to know what people really think, feel, and do. I admire people who represent themselves truthfully. That way if I invite you over for dinner and you’ve only pretended that you are into healthy food you won’t starve, have to pretend that you just had to eat on the way over, and stop for food on the way home.