The pain of hiding your true self | Ruth Clare | TEDxYouth@LGS

[kubrad.]

the key point for me in this presentation is:
instead of asking what other people think of me if I say that, I started asking myself 'what will I think of myself if I dont say that'

[huda]

“It is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found”

[giftphiri]

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest achievement. Don't wait for people to come and find you, take your true self out of the hiding and see how your world changes"

[michelsoft]

I am 53 now, broken, and only now just realising I sacrificed my Self as a small child. I am in therapy and will Change. There is hope.

[Bsarahkristy]

“I kept twisting myself into whatever shape my father wanted me to be.” - this one hit hard.

[theemilbarna]

Key point: Nobody cares as much as you think they do. This was a great talk!

[jamiewilliams]

Never be scared to be your true self even if it goes against the grain.

[abby]

i felt so proud of her when she spoke about her parents - it was so brief and honest, yet she didnt try to hide her feelings about it! i could see her acknowledging her pain and continuing forward bravely - so inspiring ♥️

[fleep]

Authenticity with Empathy with SELF is GOLDEN.

[ashleybursch]

she was 26 in 1999?! I thought she was 26 right NOW

[pv]

She was bending over backwards to please others. Then her back gave way. Our bodies are always showing us where we are going wrong. The danger is that when we dont listen to the small signals it will amp up to make us listen.

[wapistani]

“I kept twisting myself into whatever shape my father wanted me to be.” - this one hit hard. No pun intended.

[kukulcan]

"You had to sacrifice who you were to be what other people needed you to be."

[Ea.rth.]

I have spent the past few days thinking over how strongly I hide my true personality, and thinking over how it came to be, in hopes to change it and come out of my hiding place.... As a child I believe I was told to "settle down" too many times that it just stuck, and asked to "wait until we are home" to be dancing or singing or whatever else I was up to... That's how I think it went down that got me this way. But I found this video after spending today with this pain in my back. I've even thought of it as a problem with one of my disc's... so this is extremely profound to have stumbled upon this video. I will not give up on bringing my true self out. I want to play and never worry about who's watching. People can stay settled down just like they were taught. And the ones that would enjoy me will. It's just a matter of time and patience but I hope I don't take too long. I'm 28 right now ♡

[dazed]

Another thing is feeling like you’re the only one going thru this, so you hide it and don’t share these feelings. It makes it snowball. So relatable. Never thought others felt like hai

[perfectjocelyn]

“ what will I think of myself if I don’t say that” cut deep

[FancyNelli]

It resonated with me so deeply I started to cry half way and a weight lifted off my shoulder. I feel like God sent me this message when I needed the most.

[moderndaynostalgics]

"How will I think about myself if I don't say this" was really powerful and inspiring!

[jennifermoody]

I'm just stunned to my core because of how deeply and intensely this just affected me.. I am in awe of how her feelings and experiences were almost exactly the same as my own.. I didn't know what to expect when I started watching this, but I definitely wasn't expecting to be so impacted by it in a way that I needed to so desperately.. I'm so humbled and grateful for this and I know God led me to it because He knew what I was needing to hear..

[ryder]

It’s better to be liked for who you really are than to be liked for who you aren’t. It’s better to be true to yourself and be disliked than to put in a bunch of effort to be something fake and still be rejected anyway.

Friends made while pretending to be something you’re not are often not very good friends. A good friend is someone you like for who they are, and they like you for who you are. So how can you have good friends if they don’t know you?

I’ve had a lot of friends in my life. Not many of them knew the real me. The ones I still have knew the real me.

And I want you to know, once you’re friends with everyone, you begin to wonder why you ever wanted to be friends with everyone. Some people aren’t worth being friends with. Some people are perfectly okay among their own people, but you realize you don’t want to be in that circle.

And that’s not to say you can only be friends with people similar to you. It’s deeper than that. Just cultivate authenticity in yourself. Be true to yourself. Don’t offer a false self to others. You will find yourself with friends with many things in common, and many interesting differences as well. You will find people you mesh with who are very similar and very different from you, and you won’t get along with people you are very similar to and who you are very different from. But all the people you’re friends with will have one thing in common: they like you. The real you. There is a person from every corner of the world who could possibly like you, all with completely different things going on. And their neighbors might not be so fond of you. It’s not your fault. No one has to like anyone. It’s good that they don’t have to like you. It means the ones that do like you are more meaningful. Imagine if everyone just had to like you. Then it would be like no one did. Plus, pretending to be something you’re not - you’re hiding from your real friends. You’re actively making it harder for your people to find you.

What about popular people? Well, most popular people are doing exactly that. Pretending to be something else. It might look fun, but in reality, many popular people feel lonely. It looks like they have a lot of friends, but they don’t feel close to anyone. Sure, some popular people are liked by many, and seem to have genuine friends. I’ve known people like this, and they’ve been stereotypical popular kids, but curiously, they’ve also been all kinds of other types as well. We all can think of popular people who don’t fit the classic stereotype. In reality, these people are extremely varied. But they all have one thing in common. They’re liked for who they really are. They’re comfortable and genuine and authentic. Chasing popularity won’t guarantee popularity. And if you get it by chasing it, it will probably feel empty. If you instead prioritize being authentic and forging real friendships, never mind the popularity, you’ll have a better chance at becoming popular.

It’s also like how if you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. It takes more effort to try to give everyone everything they want, and you’re less likely to succeed. As opposed to trying to please the people that actually matter, it taking less effort, and it actually being possible. Often, people want contradictory things. You will end up displeasing some by pleasing others.

Also: when riding in an airplane, you put your face mask on first if the cabin loses pressure. If everyone does the same thing, then no one needs help. But if anyone can’t, then you won’t pass out, and you can help them in turn.

You are a better force for good when you have first fulfilled your own needs. You can help more people if you are strong.

It’s okay to not be liked by everyone.