It is said that all great people in our history have invented themselves. I believe that I as well as everyone else has to invent themselves as well to reach their own TRUTH and Authenticity.
I know for myself I have worked hard over the past years at accepting myself, and figuring out what my authentic TRUTH is and how I was supposed to get there from such a place so far away from my TRUTH.
I began through thinking about what were my values and what did I want my persona to feel and look like? How did I want others to receive me? Feel about me? Want from me as their friend, parent, or spouse?
In my thirties after I got divorced. I was looking at one of life’s biggest and hardest transitions; that of the newly divorced single parent. Wow, I don’t think I ever felt such enormity put on my person, right down to my soul.
I started with therapy. Lots of it. I realized through therapy just who I really was at that time, and I didn’t like that person at all. I was in a quick rush to get away from that person and be the new, the evolved, Corey Britton.
I started with my insides. How did I need to change and I began to listen to myself, and my soul began to softly speak to me and listen to me as I wrestled with it over big mighty issues involving who and what was my Authentic self?
Therapy ripened me for some real self-actualization. Not the kind that we dream about when we are in forward motion but the type where we look hard in the mirror and face the demons rather the angels of our reflections.
I was stunned at what the mirror revealed as well as what my fiery brain revealed in therapy. Some pretty low lows were met with a sadness so deep I couldn’t touch the bottom of it, and if I tried I would have continued in free-fall as I was not able to discern a bottom to my sadness. My sadness would come through a mini-transition from separated and not accepting my reality to separated and accepting my reality. My sadness for a year or so defined me and who I was and how I presented myself to the little bit of the world I still continued to participate in.
Gradually, the sadness never left but I got used to it, until one day, I accepted without hesitation my divorce from my ex wife who had been my very best friend.
To make matters more complicated, I was looking as most of us do for a quick fix and a quick way to avoid the inevitable pain I would have to come back to and revisit later. I started without any right of my own, dating like crazy and reverting to the me before I ever got married. Sure I had to dust myself off, but once a player always capable of being a player I thought. I abated my grief through achingly beautiful women. I dated up a storm and ran through them like water but kept them all as friends as I still faced the reality of my life’s greatest loss: my beloved ex wife. I continued through therapy and learned my ugly truths very upfront and personally.
I came out of almost two years of therapy and a newly minted divorce with my tail between my legs and my ego trying to remain upbeat with the dating of even a playboy centerfold. It was a big score and she was a keeper as they all were as my ex-wife had no idea about my new single life that was picking up major steam.
After my divorce was final, I was in a much better place to figure out who and what I wanted to be going forward as I had to rebuild every facet of my being. I started with my outside as that was the easiest and well most important part to the achingly beautiful women I had rotating through my life.
I decided to change myself completely in hopes of rebuilding myself into something I might be able to like than maybe love through some deep self-actualization process. I decided to change from bad as I saw and felt it to as good as I possibly could be. This meant letting go off the achingly beautiful women as I righted my soul and showed myself some self-respect and a new way of living.
I changed my look. We all have a look, but being graced with naturally different looks and a decision to change my hair drastically and my persona even more drastically, I ended up in a place where I was a kind, genuine, and respectful person where my TRUTH lined up accordingly with every single person in my Universe. I decided not another fib, ever, no matter how small or innocent. My temperament where I always had a soft demeanor with those I cared for and loved, and a hard one with the rest of the world, was replaced by an Authentic TRUTH of mine which involved a loving kindness and compassion for everyone. I buried the old temperament, I covered the flaws of my past and one by one dug holes to bury them deeply and forever.
What was left was a humbled person, who was gentle and kind, to many peoples surprise. I reinvented my look. I changed my looks to adopt a look that was all me and not like anyone I knew or had seen in magazines. I cut my hair and I dyed it white, platinum blonde. Nobody had my hair, and nobody had my new found heart with unconditional loving kindness, and patience my friends and family had never seen.
I slowly began the process of making myself visible to the world, without any bit of a bite to my bark anymore. I started getting compliments from people I just met, who thought I, Corey, was a good person. It was so surreal. I was never known as a good person or great friend before. I didn’t need to be, I was cockily good-looking and I knew I was truly gifted with my intelligence and my physical prowess that was second to nobody.
Now, I let all my cockiness go, as it was irrelevant to my newly invented and authentic self. I knew I was doing right, and living my authentic TRUTH because I was no longer fighting the Universe on any level. Everything was smooth and seamless, and that was my litmus test for my Authentic self.
I have left my old, and less than genuine persona and person way behind, and took my new looks and my newly evolved persona and moved forward step by step with a humility and lack of cock sure attitude that maligned my persona for many years and masked my TRUTH and authentic self for the first over two decades of my life.
Fast forward to today, and I am now a PhD student, with my own look and style, that is built on intentionality that I do pursue every day and I am now known as a little Gandhi who wouldn’t ever yell or hurt anyone not even my worst enemy. My authentic TRUTH will not allow me to deviate from the good, and kindness I ooze as my signature of my persona, combined with the fire in my brain that runs my mind and my body for long periods without slept or rejuvenation and is a bit intoxicating to those around me.
My road to Authenticity was long, and I don’t believe it is complete or I am finished in anyway. I believe I will always through intentionality be a work in progress and always be looking through the divine to improve myself and live to the best of my ability with my own style which is almost due for an overhaul with my look and style. I have begun the search for my new look as it will take a while to find the right look that befits me from my soul, to the fire in my brain, to my intentional uniqueness that just is Corey.
Today, I am just Corey……..
-Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2016
Coreys Universe 