Dishonestly Honest
I have been dishonestly honest. I have wanted to do the ‘right’ thing, be the ‘right’ type of person, tried to fit in with what I thought I was supposed to do. Coped in the way I believed to be ‘normal’. And I did. I did cope. I did laugh and have good times, succeed in my career, be blessed with good health, a wonderful partner and great family and friends. So, what’s wrong with this picture? What do I have to complain about? In this world of suffering, even if I dared to reveal or admit to the helplessness and hopelessness I felt inside, who am I to burden others with my self-absorbed issues? Anyway, it’s not a problem right? It’s not a REAL problem if I drink a bit too much because I feel anxious and stressed pretty constantly and that’s my automatic go to, if I can’t really visualize what my future looks like or if I have a future. . . . If I feel like a complete fake and that everything good that has shown up so far has been a total fluke and I can’t, can’t, can’t keep up the charade forever . . . . I should be grateful right? Be thankful. And I am, I am SO lucky . . . . but now I feel guilty. Because the fact is I’m still not happy and there must be something wrong with me. So I dull the pain. I conveniently push it aside so I don’t have to face what I can’t bear to face, so I can wake up and get through each day. I distance myself from myself day after day after day, and one day I wake up and I simply don’t recognize my world. And that is it, I can suddenly see my future.
The thing is, I was never taught how to handle the constant voice in my head. Never knew that my thoughts weren’t the truth and set in concrete, that they were just thoughts, ideas. Never realised there were tools that I could draw on, in whatever form suited ME, to help and support me to shift my beliefs and my story. To offer options outside of numbing and hiding. That numbing my feelings also sucked every ounce of true joy and expansion out of my life.
You are a good person. You are. But there is something going on in your life that has you anxious, that is tapping you on your shoulder, that you are stoically and quietly, and maybe despairingly trying to handle yourself. I can see you and I’m here to stand up and say that you are not alone, I have been there and I know your pain. You are outwardly living, or working toward, the life of your dreams but inwardly you are compromising everything, including your health and your values. Or maybe you are not even sure what they are anymore.
This is a call to those who can no longer sit with their current reality. Those of you who are urgently seeking action to move through and past what is just not working, despite your persistent and heroic efforts. It is not okay to simply be ‘okay’. What is playing out in your life will not miraculously evaporate by simply trying harder or pretending to believe something that you fundamentally, deep down, KNOW is not true. Consider this — what if the voice in your head is wrong? What if you do deserve to find ALL of the happiness you seek, that in amongst everyone and everything around you, what you need and want still matters greatly? What if THIS, as it is today, is not IT? That there are abundant opportunities crossing your path right now. That maybe this is one of those opportunities.
Today I coach and support individuals and small businesses to create and transform — because no one is exempt from the possibility of change, not even you. It’s time to stop being dishonestly honest.
