As We Celebrate Freedom With The Fourth Of July, Find Ways To Enjoy The Freedom To Be Yourself

A lot of people struggle with subconsciously restricting themselves from the freedom to be who they really are. Sometimes it’s hard to even recognize what’s holding us back from being ourselves or that we’re doing that at all. To help you take the first steps on the path to free yourself to be the real you, Dr. Yvonne Thomas, Ph.D., a Los Angeles therapist, has outlined three issues that often block us from being who we are.

People generally want to be liked. This is a normal impulse. This is part of why we are kind to each other, help people out with favors, and tend to be agreeable in general. However, it’s important to know when even good things get to be too much and not healthy. By being overly agreeable or doing everything people ask you to, it’s easy to become a people pleaser. We can become people pleasers in regards to what our family, significant other, friends and/or colleagues expect from us. This, in turn, can tangle us up in choices and situations that aren’t in our best interest. Learning how to create healthy boundaries in terms of pleasing people is an important step in finding the freedom to be ourselves.

When talking about perfectionism, people might think of meticulously organizing your home or paying particular attention to detail in artistic projects. However, perfectionism can also apply to someone’s personality, and the way that person interacts with other people. Maybe we think that we need to be perfect in order to be likable or lovable enough in the eyes of ourselves or others. Perhaps we think that it’s absolutely necessary for us to have a good job in order to deserve good things. Perfectionism can make us tie our own worth to specific things to the point where we’re no longer being ourselves but just an image of who we think we should be. Unlearning these notions can be difficult, but far from impossible if you have the right help.

It’s easy to get stuck in routines. After all, they can become so familiar that anything outside of them can feel scary or uncertain. This has especially become relevant as we slowly reemerge from the pandemic. Even when we know it’s not healthy for us to maintain these routines, it can be hard to escape them out of fear of breaking away from what is known and comfortable. For example, we might be aware that we need exercise or healthy diets in order to lead a healthy life. However, we may have become so used to not doing these things that taking a leap into something healthier requires courage. This is easier when we are given a step-by-step process on how to start incorporating these healthy things which is why therapy can be a great way to broaden our lives and grow closer to being who we really are.

It can often be hard to change things that we know are keeping us from being ourselves. After all, the familiar is comfortable. It takes courage to take a leap of faith into something new, even if we know it would be better. Whether you’re being held back by others’ expectations of you or by your own standards, you might need some help to break these patterns and grow beyond them. Psychologist Dr. Yvonne Thomas has specialties including helping people deal with the issues that we’ve discussed in this post.

If you’d like to learn more about how she can help you with issues like these, you can give Dr. Yvonne Thomas a call at (310) 359-9450 or request an appointment online here on her website.