I’ve been pulling an invasive plant, Creeping Charlie, out of my flower beds and lawn. I do not like it because it crowds and eventually chokes the plants already there. I have lots of Creeping Charlie…lots of time weeding and thinking about the similarity with how we live our lives. If we know our core values and live by them, there is little room for invasive, outside influences. But we don’t start there. As small children, we first take on the values of the adults in our lives. Later we begin to sort things out. We’re cool if those values from the outside align with our core values. When things do not align, inner conflict is the result. Our own beliefs are crowded out to the extent we live our lives by others’ values and not our own. Living an authentic life means each of us must live our own life, not as someone else would have us live it. Ready to do some weeding? What outside influences are keeping you from living your authentic life?