What does it mean to be your best self?

If you were asked what you are at your best, what would that mean to you? Would you need time to think and ponder and conclude that you don’t know?

I ask because it feels to me that we are living at a time when being the best is not the same as being YOUR best. Our best self. Who is that? Is it the organised, financially sensible self who gets the chores done, holds two jobs and has a family? Is it the self that competes for fun and doesn’t care if they win or lose because it’s the taking part that counts? Is it the self that writes daily lists of things that need doing and ticks them off with satisfaction? Is it the self that is politically minded and gets involved, sharing information and signing petitions on behalf of others? Is it the self that reads the self help books and strives to be a better, healthier, more resilient person, recovering from old wounds and emerging a stronger, happier YOU? Is it the self the practices mindfulness on the tube? Who are you?

It’s a question I’ve asked myself in recent years because along the way of my Hahalala revolution within, I realised that I didn’t really know my SELF very well at all. I knew my behaviours...some nice, some less than desirable. I kind of knew my ‘personality type’ through being reflected in the responses of others...funny, clever, sharp, a bit scary...that sort of thing. But I didn’t know my ‘self’ as it were. The self that arrived in the world all those years ago and was shaped by the environment I was born into. 

It wasn’t until I was stripped of my capacity to be who I once thought I was that I had to start really looking. Who are we when we cannot speak, cannot walk, cannot look after ourselves? It was a question I faced again years later when my beloved wife was dying of cancer and I had to really see her underneath the years of persona that she had created in order to be able to live in this time and space. 

We were ‘radical feminists’ in a world where women have been under attack and our voices silenced amidst the atrocities. We were angry, funny women with much to say and much to learn on top of the learning we had already done. We were successful in our respective careers and we had circles of people around us who loved and still love us. We were women with enemies and women with friends. But who were we?

Now, in the years after her death, I ask myself again...who am I? Who is my true self? New definitions within new relationships or still the essential self I always was? The small child who found awe and wonder in nature amongst the trees. Or the grown up who is still soothed by the magic of the forest? Or both? Perhaps we are at our best when we are closest to our smallest selves....the self that wants to play, to make friends, to explore the world with wide open wonder and have an interest in the age of ladybirds?

I realised a while ago that not all children will become grown ups but all grown ups have been children. That’s the thing isn’t it? When do we lose the child within and can we be our best self if that child is gone? The bigger questions perhaps cannot be answered. Who are any of us? Who are the real selves? Who do we see and who sees us? What does best mean? What does true self mean? It feels important to ask. In case anyone’s looking. 

Just a thought.....amongst the quest for health and happiness and love and laughter 💖💫