You are the Expert on You

Hey everyone, it's Karen here, and I am an expert - on myself. There is nothing I know more about than myself, and I hope many of you feel this way too. It isn't easy to know oneself with a meaningful degree of honesty and authenticity, but it is certainly worth trying. And, as Spiderman's Uncle Ben used to tell him, "with great power comes great responsibility." 

We do have great power when we realize no one knows us better than we know ourselves. But it is also a responsibility. It means we have to be honest with ourselves about who we are and what we do. And when it comes to matters of our health, this is critically important. 

Many of us routinely ignore what we know about ourselves in pursuit of "health." What about that time you did a low-carb diet even though you know you feel awful when you don't eat carbs? Or when you routinely try to prepare recipes that require more time and energy than you have to prepare them? Or when your doctor waved off your concerns and you went along because "they know better." There are countless examples.

When we willfully ignore what we know about ourselves, we set ourselves up for failure and disappointment. This is not to say that we shouldn't aspire to move beyond our comfort zones to learn and grow. But we can't live in a fantasy either. And that fantasy is created by a society that tells you it has all the answers. All you have to do is ignore your own good sense and go along.

The next time you are tempted to ignore what you know about yourself, I hope you'll stop and remember this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”