Who do you want to be?
“Admit your distant love affair is with yourself.”
- David Whyte
Who do you want to be?
It’s deeply ingrained in us to dream about what we want to have, do, and achieve.
But this future-oriented, external focus often distracts us from our most important inner values.
Our fixation with the superficial aspects of our wellbeing interferes with the most important question we all face: who we want to be.
Who we are determines the quality and course of our lives far more than what we do.
But most of us live in such a way that reveals a deep error in our understanding of the nature of wellbeing.
Inner work
Consciously or unconsciously, we believe our internal peace is reliant upon our external circumstances lining up just so in order to feel okay.
But the truth is, when we do the deep inner healing work of authentic transformation, our internal state becomes less and less tied to what is happening externally.
That doesn’t mean we are impervious to life’s difficulties.
No one is.
It just means we learn to interact with those difficulties in ways that allow us to transcend them and increasingly expand our strength, resilience, and conscious awareness.
In other words, we learn to surf the waves of life with more and more ease and grace.
And as we do so, we begin to discover joy, laughter, and play even in the midst of deeply challenging and painful circumstances.
Not only that, but when we cultivate a robust sense of internal wellbeing, it actually has a powerful influence on how our lives unfold externally.
In other words, we have it all backwards.
We believe our inner salvation lies in the external world, when in reality our external lives usually begin to change in substantive and sustainable ways only when we’ve done the deep inner work.
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Internal vs external
The more we tend to our inner wellbeing and who we are, the more we bring our outer lives into alignment with what our souls are calling forth from us.
Put another way, we have to refocus our time, energy, and attention toward the cultivation of being in order to reconnect with our souls, our higher purpose, and our sense of vitality.
This is how we begin to live out our unique destinies in the world.
Doing deep transformational work is the only way to cultivate a robust and lasting sense of internal peace.
Anything else is just a superficial fix.
So when you live under the illusion that peace is primarily external you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Because you’re only okay if your external circumstances are lining up how you hope (which they rarely do).
That’s the irony.
When we worship the external, things never seem to line up how we want.
But when we center our wellness internally, things tend to shift externally and fall into place more and more seamlessly.
And we see how all of it serves our growth and expansion, deepening our inner strength and capacity.
Research-based, personalized therapy.
At My LA Therapy, our warm and experienced therapists specialize in anxiety, depression, trauma, & relationships.
Aligning Our Lives
Becoming who we want to be is a lifelong undertaking.
It requires us to practice attuning our attention to what our souls most deeply value and to increasingly live out and embody the values that are most essential to our being.
Aligning our lives in this way is at the heart of cultivating character and integrity.
This takes courage, strength, and a willingness to look honestly at ourselves, our flaws, and what is not working in our lives.
It’s not easy to look at what is painful about our lives and to make the necessary changes.
But it is worth it.
For me personally, realigning my life to reflect my values means setting aside more time to nurture my creativity, which is an essential element of my spiritual life and nourishes my ability to be more present, resilient, and kind.
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Brooke Sprowl is an industry-leading expert and author in psychology, spirituality, and self-transformation. Her insights have featured in dozens of media outlets such as Huffington Post, Business Insider, Cosmopolitan Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Spectrum One News, Mind Body Green, YourTango, and many more.
As the founder and CEO of My LA Therapy, she leads a team of 15 dedicated therapists and wellness professionals. Brooke has been a featured speaker at prominent universities and venues such as UCLA School of Public Affairs, USC, Loyola Marymount University, the Mark Taper Auditorium, and Highways Performance Gallery, to name a few.
With a Master’s degree in Clinical Social Welfare with a Mental Health Specialization from UCLA, a Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from USC, and certifications in peak performance and flow science from the Flow Research Collective, Brooke has helped hundreds of prominent leaders and CEO’s overcome anxiety, relationship difficulties, and trauma and reclaim a sense of purpose, vitality, and spiritual connection.
With 15 years of experience in personal development and self-transformation as a therapist and coach, she has pioneered dozens of original concepts and frameworks to guide people in overcoming mental health challenges and awakening spiritually.
Brooke is the host of the podcast, Waking Up with Brooke Sprowl. She is passionate about writing, neuroscience, philosophy, integrity, poetry, spirituality, creativity, effective altruism, personal and collective healing, and curating luxury, transformational retreat experiences for high-achievers seeking spiritual connection.
