Coming Home to Your True Self
The awkward, yet comforting, experience of getting reacquainted with your authentic nature after years of self-suppression. Like reconnecting with a childhood friend.
Getting reacquainted with yourself after a long period of disconnection can feel awkward like catching up with a friend you haven't seen since you were 5 years old.
You vaguely remember each other yet there is an air of familiarity when you’re with them. A lot of life has happened since you last saw each other, still, they’re the same but different. They’ve changed so much although seeing each other feels oddly comforting. You get to catch up on all the life events, traumas, accomplishments, and milestones you’ve missed since being out of touch. You get to reminisce about the good times and fond memories of life being so simple. The twinkle of nostalgia warms your heart at the same time a trickle of sadness aches for a time you can't get back.
You just want to jump back into the effortless ways you used to connect on the playground but there is clunkiness to your casual attempts for closeness. You start to learn about who this person is now, still picturing them from the past, but having to adjust to the ways they are like a brand new person to you. Feeling the sweetness of recognizing the 5-year-old you remember in their smile and laughter. Feeling the dawning realization of the pain and struggle they have experienced since you were both carefree and naive to life's troubles. Feeling the pride witnessing all they have achieved, all they have surmounted, all they have grown into since you saw them last. The slow remembrance of the ease and natural friendship you had so easily shared. The calming presence of reconnecting with someone who had the rare gift of knowing you at such a young age. The homecoming of those childlike quirks and the glimpses of purity in their eyes. The revival of wonder and youthful innocence sparked by your reunion. Hoping, yearning, it will stick around long after your coffee date meet-up.
Kinda like this childhood reconnection, it can feel awkward and comforting to get to know your true self after years of self-suppression.
What starts out as self-protection turns into self-imposed confinement. What starts out as a way to survive turns into a way of life. What was once a defense mechanism becomes a personality trait; even an identity.
Dimming your light to minimize the judgment, insecurity, and jealousy thrown your way. Snuffing your spark to reduce the amount of criticism and rejection from people you care about. Playing small to reduce the amount of envious eyes and unwanted attention. Micromanaging every word, facial expression, clothing choice, and posturing to be as neutral or neutral-positive as can be. Filtering every quirk, oddity, or any notion of eccentricity that makes you stand out from the crowd.
Torturous to do time and time again until it becomes your new normal. Painful at first but then you realize how effective it is at warding off unwanted looks, judgments, and comments. The less time you have to deal with unsolicited criticisms and people’s shameful projections. The safer you felt to exist in the world without having to deal with the rest of the world. You found a way to minimize the opportunity to be bothered by other people. But really you just minimized the opportunity for your authenticity to bother people’s suppressed shadow at the cost of living your life as your true self.
You almost get used to the safety of this small container you once felt limited in. This comically small box you once felt suffocated by becomes a comfortable weighted blanket. This cage you once felt trapped in becomes a reasonable threshold. The critical voice that squandered your potential becomes the voice of reason and truth. Why is it, that we can get so comfortable being wounded? So comfortable staying the victim long after being victimized. So comfortable knowing ourselves fully guarded in the defense mechanisms we used to wish we never needed in the first place.
Receiving judgment & rejection when you express yourself authentically is an assault on your soul.
It feels like you can only belong if you conform. Like you can only be accepted if you are a watered-down version of yourself. Like you can only be loved if you are less yourself. The judgment, shame, expectations, and pressure you were subjected to by parents, family, peers, etc. are confessions regarding their own relationship to self-expression. But when you’re young, you don’t know that. Your authentic self gets chipped away at with each judgmental glare and uninvited bitter remark. Your authentic self suddenly goes from existing in its raw form to feeling the pressure to measure up to expectations or follow rules that weren't even theirs. Just to feel loved. Just to feel accepted. Just to belong. These small assaults on who you are become too painful to bear as they start to add up; especially by the people you love the most.
The strength, courage, and audacity it takes for a young person to let their authentic self persist no matter what the reception, is incredible. I like to think those people were fortunate enough to grow up being affirmed, encouraged, supported, and loved for being authentically themselves. But maybe some people have a feisty gene that refuses to let them be any other way and that's just as amazing. Some people struggle to be that bold and brave when they look around and see no one in their corner. Some see a bunch of love in their corner but it’s for being a dull, acceptable version of themselves crafted by the people around them. That's a different kind of loneliness. To be loved for a version of you. To be loved for being acceptable and palatable, to make the people around you feel more comfortable (and thus yourself more comfortable too). They get to experience all the love and joy of being around this digestible version of you while you feel invisible. Even feeling revolted by the love because it feels like being smothered in confetti from a love bomb. Instinctually rejecting all the affection because it doesn't even feel enjoyable to relish in love for not being yourself.
“You’re not a victim for sharing your story. You are a survivor setting the world on fire with your truth. And you never know who needs your light, your warmth, and raging courage.”
— Alex Elle
You may have been wrongly, cruelly, unjustly, victimized. But make no mistake, you are no victim. You have been strong and resilient for far too long. You have had to persevere, endure, and even mask through pain. You know how to do that well, maybe even too well. You deserve to know yourself in softness, ease, and joy. You deserve to feel safe exposing your vulnerability. You deserve to take up space with your sensitivity. You deserve to feel peace in your body. You deserve to feel the freedom of laughter and serenity of unadulterated joy.
You will start to feel a stirring in your bones & restlessness in your heart when you feel ready to reclaim what’s rightfully yours.
As you start to uncage yourself and revive your authentic self, it is going to feel vulnerable. This truthful, raw, essence of you is going to feel exposed after getting cozy being hidden in the shadows. It has learned there is safety in being hidden. As long as it's hidden it will never have to experience being judged, rejected, or any other assaults to their true nature. But there comes a point where your true self cannot bear the self-suppression. It would rather risk the assaults than live another day in self-imposed prison. That false sense of safety from your small container will feel like it’s holding you back. The comfort from the tiny box you're in will start to feel smothering. The sensible limits of your cage will start to feel asphyxiating. The fraudulent voice of reason clearly reveals itself as fear of your potential.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us."
—Marianne Williamson
Coming out of the shadows & reclaiming who you are in the light might feel foreign.
As you rid yourself of that small container, a medium-sized container will even feel too big. When you toss that small box, you’ll get a slightly bigger box and think “Wow this is all the space I’ll ever need.” You’ll fly out the door of your cage, sit on top of it, and think “Yeah, that’s far enough.” You'll start to trust and speak kindly to yourself and wonder “Am I the imposter?” The space you start to take up will feel unsettling. The room you give yourself to grow into will feel uncomfortable. The peace of being yourself will feel unusual. The voice of trust will feel wrong. The limitlessness of your potential will feel outlandish. The freedom of self-expression will feel cumbersome and silly. The authenticity of your true nature will feel clumsy and gawky. It is to be expected after getting used to one way of being for so long. Your true self needs some time to shake the dust off and gain its sea legs.
Ready to shed the armor. It feels long overdue.
As you awaken to your true self and revive your authentic nature, you let go of the masks, defenses, and baggage you’ve been holding onto. As you release them, you will feel the weight of all you’ve been accustomed to carrying. You start to notice the heaviness of the armor you’ve been wearing. As you start to take it off, layer by layer, you will experience complex grief.
Grief for who you were before needing it.
Grief for carrying the burden of it all these years.
Grief for how it became a part of you like your own skin.
Grief for how good it feels to let it go.
Grief for not needing it anymore.
Just like someone who has been hiding in a dark, cold, damp, stuffy cave for years, you’ll need to give yourself grace, compassion, and patience when adjusting to the light. Letting your eyes adjust to the blinding brightness of the sunshine. Letting your skin acclimate to the warmth of the sun enveloping your skin. Letting your lungs calibrate to the crisp bite of a fresh breeze. Letting your mind adapt to the expansive, limitless space of the open sky.
“I am not your cup of tea because I am made too strong and frankly, too hot for you to enjoy. Maybe you can tolerate me in tiny sips but I don’t want to be tolerated. I want to be devoured by those who value all I am and who do not wish I was in any way watered down to meet your tepid tastes.”
—David Gate
Gradually, you will feel safer and more comfortable taking up space than ever before. Unapologetically expressing yourself more than you ever have. Craving even more and more room to grow without an end in sight. Trusting yourself and loving yourself with even more depth. Desiring and dreaming richly beyond bounds. Savoring every sensation of peace in your body. Taking every chance you get to laugh till you cry and smile till your cheeks hurt. Choosing to chase and bask in what brings you joy rather than concealing it to avoid the whispers of bystanders’ half-lived lives. Reclaiming every difference and embracing every uniqueness that made you stand out. Fanning the flame of the passions that light you up. Shining your light without a care if it’s too bright for some. Surrendering any need to control people’s perception of you as it’s no cause for concern. Day by day it will start to become your new way of life.
And just like an old friend, you will start to remember. You will start to recapture a time before your armor, before the cage. A time when you were just you. And you will get a chance to get reacquainted, catch up, and rekindle your connection.
And you’ll get to say to yourself
“Welcome home.”
