In my work, I come across a lot of people who are emotionally where I used to be--miserable, living a lie and swearing it isn’t so. In the past few days, three women have stood out as beautiful snapshots of the pain and fear that I stayed trapped in for so long.
They think they’re putting on a good front, will tell you how happy they are and rattle off a well-honed list of reasons why. Of course, people who are truly happy generally don’t feel compelled to provide supporting evidence of it, they just are. So when someone starts detailing the situations that prove they’re happy, I can’t help but ask, “Who are you trying to convince, me or you?”
The answer, of course, is both. When the lies we’ve told ourselves start slipping, we need outside reinforcement to keep them in place. Getting others to agree with our version of reality gives us permission to avoid facing the real truth—and the possibility of it changing our lives—for a little while longer.
However, you can’t live indefinitely in that place of pretending you have what you want and fearing what will happen if you admit you don’t. At some point there will be a reckoning.
It’s a special hell being stuck in that limbo between yearning for wings to set you free and being terrified of losing what’s keeping you trapped.
That deep desire to let the real you come out and dance naked in front of the whole world, not caring what anyone thinks is at war with the indescribable fear of what will happen if you do.
If you acknowledge your true nature and desires and set them free, will life as you know it shatter right before your very eyes and leave you utterly alone and unloved?
Who can take that chance? Who can stand here and say, yes, I’m willing to risk losing everything that has defined me? Who can say I’m willing to finally let me be me and live authentically and congruently no matter what the cost? Who can do that? Who will do that?
We must all do that.
Until we are willing to be honest with ourselves and honor who we truly are and what we want, we can never really be happy. We can only list the reasons we think we should be and then pretend they’re true.
Just as the caterpillar must be willing to allow everything that made it a caterpillar to be dissolved away into goo so that it can be transformed into a glorious butterfly; we too must allow ourselves to be deconstructed so we can be rebuilt authentically without the illusions, delusions and limitations of our past.
There is no other way.
And all you have to do is be willing to let go of the very things you are arguing so hard to keep—those things you think should make you happy. All you have to do is be willing to allow your own transformation. All you have to do is get out of your own way.
It’s time. Step into your chrysalis now. It’s the only way to find your wings.
Paula Renaye is tough love motivational speaker, professional coach and author of The Hardline Self Help Handbook, which has just won a 4th Book Award. For more tips and details on how to download her free Tweet-able Tough Love Quotes book, visit http://hardlineselfhelp.com.
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