Being too much, eating cake, and little acts of everyday rebellion

Have you ever inadvertently let go of control? Dropped the mask? Fallen out of your *roles* in life? Felt like you were being too much, even for a minute?

You know what I’m talking about. That moment when something within you surfaces, and you become an observer. You’re trying to contain yourself, but you simply can’t. *It* has to come out. You’re restless, sleepless, pacing, your inner voice screams, stutters. There’s no way to hold back the anxiety, the tears, the anger, or the joy.

Eventually, something has to give.

You let go of the reins. Loosen them (because I mean, letting go – even a little – you’re still a very put together human, aren’t you?). Show a side of you that only you know exists.

This letting go does something, relieves something, creates something new. It certainly doesn’t feel all that bad. But then, your inner critic takes over and screams at you, what the hell is wrong with you!? Shame sets in, telling you that you’re…

Too much.
Too loud.
Too foolish.
Too demanding.
Too out of control.

The voice hides the fact that you did nothing wrong. But still, you struggle and keep apologising. You try to make up for your “bad” behaviour – because for some reason it feels threatening to the well put together you.

Many have felt this way. I’ve certainly been there many times. Maybe you have too…

As creative, multi-passionate, high-achieving women it’s hard to live up to society’s expectations. We’re taught to play the part early on in our lives. We’re expected to be nice, anything but loud. Although many of us become *really* good at it, it’s a struggle to remain composed all the time, and to feel constrained by the pressure to be what we’re not.

This keeps us from letting go, and stepping into the fullness of who we are.

Light and dark.
Soft and hard.
Strong and fragile.
Courageous and afraid.
Put together and a mess.
Happy and sad.

The conditioning is strong, which makes it hard to shed.

You can’t just dance on the bar counter, or let the mask fall completely, now can you? Sometimes you ignore the nagging voice in your head and indulge in small ways. You eat that piece of chocolate cake, even if she tells you that you shouldn’t; or you buy something for yourself, even if she tells you not to. Perhaps you spend time doing nothing at all for once – yet, even that feels like you’re breaking a rule, and doing something wrong.

The guilt is always there.

Just last week, I had a conversation about this with a client who went through such a moment. This always-so-composed human let go for a few hours at a party recently. All of a sudden so much emotion and frustration came out. She made a *scene*. Afterwards she felt shattered, as if she’d done something horribly wrong, when in fact she’s an incredible person. Why did she feel uncomfortable and weighed down by revealing such a pure and raw part of herself? Of her truth?

This heart-to-heart was an honest assessment of the work needed for expansion, beyond the mask, and into liberation, freedom, and courage. What my client did that night is one of the hardest things she (or anyone else trying hard to hold everything together) could do.

The truth is, this was a way to take back control, not surrender to it.

This was an act of rebellion.

Liberation requires transformation. It can be rough to the edges, because we need to reclaim the lost parts of ourselves in the process, our wildly creative and expressive spirit. That of a full embodied human.

Breaking free is hard. But it’s also growth and beauty.

I believe there’s way too many false have-tos in our lives. They keep us so small, exhausted, stressed-out. Far away from our power and potential.

The challenge is to pay attention to our inner fire, not muffle it away as being wrong. Only so can we find our way back to the things that really matter. Only so will we ever be free.

So here’s to being too much, eating cake, and little acts of everyday rebellion.

The greatest love of all to love yourself

I watched the Whitney Houston documentary on Netflix yesterday. I cried. A couple of times. Her story is sad, and tragic. Obviously I shed some tears for that. Witnessing the rise and fall of one of the most beautiful voices of our time will not leave you undisturbed.

But to be honest, mostly, I cried for me.

Over the years I’ve honed the craft to become inconsolably melancholic in a split second, especially when I’m reminded of my life through my senses: the gentle smell of coffee filling the kitchen from my childhood home, a return visit to the neighborhood I grew up in, or in this case songs I used to play over and over on my Walkman as a 15 year old.

It’s hard to imagine, knowing how much I played those songs, that I’d forgotten about the huge Whitney Houston fan I used to be. And maybe less so about the huge mistake perm I convinced my mom I needed to get in order to fit in at school. Biggest lesson of 1990: hair grows very slowly.

It’s incredible what the mind remembers. It never stops to amaze me. Given the right cues drawers of memories open up to us, giving us a chance to poke our noses into the many moments that make up our pasts. The best part is, we never know what we’re going to get. Or when it’s going to happen!

Like yesterday. As I was settling into the documentary a strange feeling of déjà vu came over me.

I couldn’t quite place it at first, but halfway through the thing it hit me: I’d seen this footage before! Not in another documentary or randomly. No, what I realized was that I was recognizing  what I was seeing.

I always get a bit weird when that happens. I also like it a lot because it brings me into a somewhat altered state of being. Perhaps it happens to you to sometimes too. You’re looking at, reading, or listening to something then all of a sudden you realize you were a witness to it before. You were present during the actual moment of creation of that thing. In other words: you were there!

Coming to this conclusion always brings me back to the limits of my own existence. Which in and of itself is a spiritual experience. That’s why I like it so much. It reminds me of what’s important.

Through the old footage, the inevitable clip from The Bodyguard – I was 17 when that movie came out and totally smitten with Kevin Costner (sadly the romance ended when he grew gills and decided to go live in the ocean) – and the many, many songs…

I remembered.

Who I used to be. My teenage years. The dreams, and goals of a 15 year old. The heartbreak that followed my first love.

The things I stood for, cared about, and believed in before I convinced myself I wasn’t good enough. That I needed to be someone else. I’m not sure it’s a coincidence that the Whitney Houston documentary is called “Can I be me?”. Is there even such a thing as coincidences?

Being taken down memory lane like that has a different effect on me depending on how I stand in my life when it happens.

Often though it will make me wonder: Where have all the years gone? Yesterday was no exception. I asked myself that question. To be honest, I’m not sure. I spent so many of those years trying to please everyone around me, trying to not have the anxious thoughts I had, trying so hard to mold myself into a perfect version of who I thought I needed to be… It’s all a little blurry.

There’s one thing I do know.

When I was 15 I was awake, in love with life.

Then at 35 I woke up again, when I finally remembered that the greatest love of all is learning to love yourself. 

Want to be good to yourself? Try disappointing a few people

I’ve spent a big part of my life trying not to disappoint anyone. I’ve also spent a big part of my life not living up to my full potential, and not being really happy. During those years, I’ve had my share of disappointments. I’ve had hard times come my way, decisions gone bad, toxic people in my life, situations I wasn’t sure I would get out of in one piece. And looking back, there’s one thing that connects all of those experiences: me not being authentic, real, and honest with myself, in an effort to avoid disappointing others. And what I’ve learned since, is that if you want to be good with yourself, disappointing a few people is inevitable.

I’ve wrote in the past about how I’m a recovering people-pleaser, and how I’ve spent a big part of my time trying to live up to other people’s expectations of me – or at least the expectations I mirrored about the kind of person I though I needed to be in order to be loved. As a people-pleaser I was very sensitive to disappointing others, trying to avoid it at all costs, all the time. As a result, I was never truly myself. And because it started at such a young age, it silenced my needs and desires to a pretty scary degree.

When I started my journey of self-discovery in 2010, one of the biggest challenges I faced, was to listen to my desires and figure out what I really wanted. This may sound trivial, but for a people-pleaser like me, or anyone with low self-esteem, or low self-confidence, having lived from a place of trying to not disappoint anyone – ever, rather than a place of self-fulfillment and self-love, messes with your sense of self and intuitive knowing about your innermost dreams and cravings.

In my case, on the proverbial day that I woke up from this pretend life, I was shocked by how little I knew about who I was or why I did the things I did. It dawned on me that avoiding disappointing others had played a major role in alienating me from myself, and who I was really meant to be.

Because you see, there’s two sides to this story.

The more you try to avoid others from being disappointed by you, the more likely you’ll be disappointing yourself. You might not be conscious of it, or you might not realize the effects it has on you for a long time, but eventually – I promise you – trying to meticulously avoid others from being disappointed by you will leave you unhappy, unfulfilled, and disappointed in yourself. At least it was for me.

When I started my self-love journey, the biggest part of the work I did focused on trying to figure out what I really wanted, and what would really serve me, and make me happy. It’s only later, and in time, that I realized that I could not become who I really longed to be, without disappointing others along the way.

The mind is funny like that, I know.

For a while I thought I could keep up the people pleasing and be self-loving at the same time. Until one day, when being true to me, and loving me made me realize I was going to break some eggs doing it. Often. Repeatedly.

That’s when I knew I had to come to terms with it, if I ever wanted to be happy. And that’s why I want to encourage you today to look at disappointment not as something to avoid at all costs, but rather as something to embrace as part of your self-loving practice, and personal growth. I have come to learn that choosing you, and wanting to be good to yourself, and treating yourself well will often collide with what others want from you. And you know what? That’s perfectly OK.

We’re not put on this earth to satisfy the needs of others, or to put those needs before our own, or to feel guilty all the time, or not good enough. We’re here to fulfill our destiny, to become the best versions of ourselves, to find happiness and joy in this existence. And that’s impossible to do, if you’re not willing to accept a few unhappy faces along the way.

Here are a few things that helped me accept disappointment in my own life, and that might help you do the same in yours:

#1: Figure out what you really want – and be true to yourself!

When I realized I wasn’t being true to my own desires, a big question mark popped up. What did I really want? I understood that in order to be happy, I needed to figure out what mattered to me. To do that, I needed to analyze my behavior, and strip it from all the people-pleasing first. Whenever I would be asked something, whether it was to do something, go somewhere, or my opinion on a particular subject, I asked myself just one question: “What would I do, if I were the only only person in the world?”. From there, I started adjusting my behavior, and my responses.

#2: Learn to say no gracefully.

By asking myself the question above, it became clear to me that I needed to say “no” much more. But I had no clue how. Not only was I afraid to disappoint, but when it came to formulating a “no” response, I was terrible at it. Often, this caused even more disappointment. My advice is, if you’re going to say “no” – and I strongly encourage you to! – it’s wise to do so gracefully. It will ease the process, and make things easier for you and the person you’re saying “no” to.

#3: See disappointment as possibility, and learn from it.

The people who know me will tell you, I never shy away from learning something new. So when I started to embrace disappointment, and see it as a useful, and even natural part of living a fulfilling life, I also started to embrace all of its possibilities. The thing is, working your way through disappointing others, and accepting to be disappointed, can have many benefits.

It helped me to see things differently, to get to know myself better, to remember what really matters to me or why I do something, and it also pushed me into places well beyond my comfort zone.

But what about you? Are you afraid of disappointing others? And are you finding that you’re turning “no” into “yes” way too often for your own good? If so, perhaps it’s time to let go, and embrace those unhappy, frowning faces.

Let me know how you’re dealing with disappointment in the comments below, I’d love to know.