Somehow, from a young age, I was taught that things have to be hard and unattainable.
My dad is a hard-working man. He’s worked well over 40 hours a week since he was 17 doing back breaking work. I honor him…his blood, sweat and tears have fed two generations.
The lessons he taught me enabled me to be successful in the “real” world. Show up early. Work harder than anyone else. Stay later than anyone else.
If I were striving for normal, these would be the indelible rules I’d follow forever.
At my core, I’m a rules and formula person. If you follow the rules, eventually you will achieve some certain level wherein you have a corner office with a level of antimony and jealousy for those higher in the corporate ladder than you are.
The problem with that…is that if, at heart, you’re not a corporate person, that shit will fucking kill you. At first, it presents as anxiety. Then autoimmune diseases. Then a wheelchair ride to the ER.
Enter a summer chasing dreams riddled with self-doubts, again, trying to fucking conform to a formula that makes you want to throat punch the charlatan who created it. And more anxiety. And depression.
You see…I’m really a non-conformist that is held prisoner in a good girl. I strive to make people comfortable. I don’t want to rock the boat…because…what if you don’t like me? What if you think less of me! What if…
What if you found out that I’m not as vanilla as I appear? That I can see through your bullshit, and that everything inside of me wants to save you from your bullshit?
What if you found out that I honestly don’t give a fuck about social norms…that I love Jesus with my whole heart, but that I don’t identify with His people, because I find that most of them aren’t living His truth let alone their own?
I find myself digressing…
You see, I’ve chosen to work with two mindset coaches that are rocking my world in vastly different ways that are achieving the same goal.
They are showing me that it doesn’t have to be fucking hard.
The hardest part of life should be the simplest.
BE WHO YOU ARE. UNABASHEDLY.
When you own who you really are, beneath the shitty masks you wear, then you’ll find that life gets easier.
You’ll find that some people fall by the wayside. You’ll find that some people you thought would be removed from your life are magnetically attracted to you.
And you’ll find that new people arrive in your life that you never saw coming.
What I’m learning is that wearing the mask of people’s expectations is actually harder than being authentic.
As for me, my mask is cracked, the veneer is broken, and I fucking refuse to repair it.
I know that it doesn’t have to be hard. My heart leaps when I hear that. My ego…my inner little girl that keeps rising up to “protect” me…she and I need to have yet another talk.
While I appreciate the protection, my ego’s protection is suffocating me. Killing me not so softly.
If any of this resonates with you…keep reading. Subscribe to the blog. Something amazing is about to transpire. You don’t want to miss out.
Deneen White 