The cost of being honest with yourself

'Look forward to adulthood', they said. 'It will be easy', they said.

Ten.

That’s probably how old I was when I began to outsource my inner knowing. It began when the other girls started changing while I continued to look like a small boy with vampire teeth.

Yes, it was unfortunate.

While they were growing curves, I was hunkered down with my books and the discovery that I could hook my front teeth over my lower lip so the two little teeth hung out there on their own like a baby vampire. So cute. I also had muckleshit brown hair cut in a wedge (anyone??) and I desperately wanted things to be different.

Photo by J W on Unsplash

Because I didn’t fit the mold of what a pre-adolescent girl was supposed to look like, I began to unconsciously study what it would take to belong and somewhere in that study, I stopped listening to myself.

When my eleven-year-old stomach tightened into knots, or my twenty-year-old spidey-senses started shrieking, I plowed ahead.

But it wasn’t constant.

There were flashes of self-trust, like the time I chose, entirely on my own, to leave waitressing (loved it!) and paralegal work (did not love it!) behind to become a chiropractic student in another country. That excellent decision was mine. But even with that inner strength, I mostly took my cues from the world around me rather than the one within me. As I’ve got older, and my ability to read the room has become a superpower, this tendency seems to have unfortunately increased.

Trusting myself is one thing, I’m quite a bit better at that, but staying with what I know is right for me, especially when it disrupts or disappoints other people, can sometimes seem impossible. I can be very good at tuning in to my higher power – my best self – to see what she has to say. I most often feel those messages in my body but then the part of me (the ten-year-old girl who lives inside) that’s driven toward self preservation, and the need to belong and be loved, steps up to remind me I shouldn’t do anything that will upset someone else. So, for most of my life I’ve pulled back to gain approval but, in doing so, I’ve buried parts of myself.

Noticing the signal is the first step (I wrote about that in my last essay). Allowing it to change me is the harder one. That’s where discomfort enters. I feel bad for putting someone out, not agreeing with them on something that is important to them, or wanting to do it my way. Heck, I seem to feel bad for having an opinion at all and when I feel any kind of uncomfortable I want to retreat or do anything to make it go away. But, it turns out I’m not alone and this is happening across our society. It’s called low distress tolerance. Perhaps it’s because we are inundated with too much hardship from around the world and our nervous systems are not made for that, or it could be the ease with which we can numb ourselves so we don’t feel anything uncomfortable. We tend to turn away from or try to fix anything that makes us feel ‘bad’, including disappointing others or allowing feelings (ours or theirs) to simply exist.

All I really want to do is whatever it takes to make it all ok that very moment even if it means going against what I know is right — but this is not okay for me or for them.

When I can stay with it and allow that ache to simply be there, something shifts and the next time it’s easier to believe myself. It takes both practice and being clear on what is most important to me.

If I want to tap into the current that is trying to live through me, I’ll inevitably disappoint people or worse. (I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but for some of us it’s a very difficult lesson to learn.) However, those people I’ve let down are adults and I need to give them credit that they will figure it out, just as I need to unravel and learn to tolerate the hard feelings (and sometimes pain) that come with my decisions so I will have the inner resilience to follow through when I know something is important to me. If I do, I’ll be left with my integrity intact. And that will have to be enough.

Does something here feel familiar? Maybe you recognize yourself in my story and also frequently have the urge to smooth it over. To go with the flow or restore harmony immediately, even if it means turning against what you know is true. This kind of self-trust takes practice. If we haven’t exercised it before, we can’t expect it to feel natural at first. We earn our self-respect slowly, by noticing what’s arising in the body and pausing long enough to let it exist without pushing it away or trying to change it.

Let’s thank our little person selves for trying to help us move through life, reminding them they don’t need to do that job anymore. Let’s remind ourselves that we are worthy of an opinion, just as others are worthy of theirs. Let’s keep working to navigate our way through this minefield of adulting with grace and aplomb rather than shrinking and should-ing.

Thank you Honeybun for being here with me, it means the world.

xoxo Donna

P.S. I have many readers tell me how much they love the comments section here at TBL so know that when you leave a comment you’re helping others as well, thank you! We would love to hear what you do to tolerate feeling uncomfortable? Also, what was your favorite haircut growing up? Mine was definitely the spiral perm, remember that?! Big hair = so awesome. Any takers for the mullet, which apparently is making a comeback!

Here is another essay I’ve written on this topic:

Permission & comfort zone, are they the same thing?

Here’s one in defense of comfort:

This is one more thing I've changed my mind on