I put the above question to the members of TribeSteemup a few days back, a question that really asks them to reflect back over their lives and to talk about what they have stayed true to and what has changed. So many different factors affect our first impression of the world. Where we are born, who we are born too and the lifestyle that we adopt.

We cannot change where we were born or who we where born too, but we can change how we live our lives. Life is full of amazing opportunities and painful challenges and they both offer us the change to learn, about ourselves and the world around us.

When we make assumptions, we see them as truth and this can be both positive and negative. We have all made assumptions about people in the past, made assumptions about different countries and cultures. We live in a world where so many people have deep rooted prejudices, purely from the assumptions they have made, from listening to the words of other but never actually coming face to face with those who there are prejudice against.

I was born into a Catholic household. My parents were not very strict when it came to religion, but we did attend church every week and I was baptized, and received my Holy Communion and Conformation. We never prayed at home though, religion was something that was only ever practised at church. From a very early age I could not understand why we forced to go sit in a cold building and listen to a man who was trying to put the fear of God in us.

Why would this Male figure, who apparently created the world, want us to be inside, when we should have been outside in nature. Because in my eyes that was where the real beauty of the world was, that was the greatest creation of all. I always struggled with religion, I felt so out of place and I did not believe of feel anything that the Priest recited in his ceremonies.

I would attend and become a robot, standing when I needed to, kneeling when it was called and replying words that meant nothing to me. From a young age, my assumption of religion,(which has held true for me) was that it was not, for me. I was only present, because I had no choice. When I left home at 18, I finally was free to make my own decisions and I no longer felt like a hypocrite, never entering a church again. (except for my grandmothers funeral).

I have my faith and it is in the earth and the wisdom held within, that has only deepen as I have gotten older.

There are some many assumptions that we make unconsciously and these can be some of the most damaging. I have always struggled in romantic relationships, I really thought I had improved over time, but seeing as how my last relationship ended I have not. I still have some lessons to learn, so that I can break the pattern that my parents created, a pattern that their parents also had a hand in creating. Just being able to write this, shows that I am on the way to breaking through that assumption that romantic love, goes hand in hand with destruction.

When I was younger I made so many assumptions about gender. I grew up believing that women and men were very very different and that certain professions where only for the male species. I grew up in the countryside, where men done all the heavy jobs and women were the carers and givers. The secondary school I went to, did not allow girls to study carpentry, something I really wanted to do, but I just accepted that that was how it was.

It was not until I moved to London at age 18, that the human world really opened up for me. I got to really see the huge potential we had, both male and female and finally I was able to challenge those engrained assumptions. I have always had no problem getting my hands dirty doing manual work, even though I grew up hearing that it was no place for a girl. I loved helping my father work on his motor bike, he only ever wanted me to pass him tools, as in his eyes no girl needed to know mechanics. But I absorbed everything he did.

We make assumptions about other people all of the time and we also make assumptions about ourselves. We really are very good at putting restrictions on ourselves, especially when we are feeling insecure. We make assumptions about the way that other people see us, but others rarely see us in the same way that we see ourselves. So many times we put on a mask, afraid to show who we are, out of fear of rejection.

I was like that in my twenties, struggling with my identity and trying to find my place in this grown up world, where we are told we need to fit in. Only when I accepted me for who I was, was I able to let go of those fears and embrace the fact that I am not here to fit into,I am here to create a difference.

It is really hard to not make assumptions, I feel them creep in at times. But I know that they have no place in my life unless I have lived to see them for what they really are.

Sometimes making assumptions helps protect us, but other times, it creates a hindrance. It prevents us from seeing others for who they really are and it can keep us in a constant cycle of negativity. We really need to embrace ourselves and others, we really need to embrace the natural world.

8 Pillars of TribeSteemUp