Messy Brilliance - A Journey Into Knowing Yourself

Messy Brilliance - A Journey Into Knowing Yourself So, youve spent the last five or ten or twenty years on a quest.   That quest may have been for Success Wealth Educational Achievement. Has your quest brought you to your desired destination?   How much happiness have you gained or sacrificed along the way? Is that destination even what you, the real you, truly want?   As Kelly McNelis says in her new book Your Messy Brilliance, All too often, many of us end up settling for a life that we arent in love with, or even worse, shrinking into joyless roles that dont fulfill us at all Even if youve tried coaches or mentors, counselors or yoga, part of the challenge to knowing yourself is that theres so much noise out there.   Distractions of life in the day, and a million self-proclaimed gurus touting miracle cures at night.   What if you already have all the answers, right there within yourself, to bring yourself to a level of joy   and self-acceptance that youve never known but always pursued? Inspired by Kellys book, here are three ways to start   on a journey towards knowing yourself in ways you probably never have. Curiosity Of all of the unique attributes of humanity, the ability to question is perhaps the most empowering.   Interestingly, we almost always limit our questioning to whats going on out there.   But heres a clue:   you dont live out there.   All of the essence of who you are resides inside the shell of your body.   In some magical combination of your mind, your heart, and what we try to conceptualize as your soul, there is you. When did you last get curious about yourself?   When did you last ask yourself questions that matter, really matter, to you?   You can start on that journey of knowing yourself by asking some of the questions posed by Ms. McNelis: Who am I? What are the many identities Ive accumulated? What are the qualities that make me who I am? And what would it look like for me to embrace all of me? via Self Magazine Awareness We each own a huge library.   Mine is called Linda Allen.   It contains all the versions of me that ever were and ever could be.   It contains all my stories.   Once I am aware of all those stories and versions that are on the shelf, I can begin to examine which ones serve me, and which ones either hold me captive or lead me away from the me I truly want to be, deserve to be.    Kelly frames it this way:   What kinds of stories about me would allow me to be the fullest version of myself, if I choose to dive into them? You might liken it to choosing the role youre about to play in magnificent production.   Of all volumes in your library, you get to choose. Acceptance Close your eyes and take another look at the library of you.   Are all the books orderly, maybe a bit dusty and never off the shelf?   Or are some well-worn while others seem to be beckoning you to open the cover and engage them? Chances are, your library is a bit of a mess.   Some volumes might be stuck in the shelf with bookmarks to remind you that you havent finished that story.   Others might be out of order because theyre favorites, your go-to sources.   All of that messiness is perfectly okay.   And thats the core message of Kelly McNeliss book. Youve also got volumes on the shelf that perhaps arent ones youre proud to share.   But they represent a part of your collection, your history, and they are what makes you, you.    The library of you is just fine.   Its up to you which stories you want to embrace. Your Messy Brilliance As the editor of Ms Career Girl, I receive many requests to review new books.   I try to choose those that sound interesting and of value to the Ms Career Girl readers.   But truth is a few of them are disappointing, and I wonder how they even got published.   Youll never hear about those. The majority turn out to be respectable volumes that provide quality advice and useful guidance.   Then there are a few that are simply standouts.   Kellys Your Messy Brilliance is one of the latter. Tip:   Take one of those gift cards you got for Christmas and get the book.   Im pretty sure itll be one of the ones you keep on your shelf for a long time and return to often. I also had the chance to bounce some questions off Kelly last year, and youll find them in a post here.