The lies we tell ourselves

It’s that whisper in your ear when you finally get the promotion and achieve the thing you wanted so badly. The voice that persistently tells you that you’re not enough; you need to work harder, be smarter, more helpful, more liked. 

These are the lies we tell ourselves that become our stories and disrupt our internal state. 

If we’re lucky, we’ll experience a symptom to remind us something is wrong.

This may look like a fight with your spouse, or making a decision in the moment that changes the trajectory of your life. It can lead to you marrying the wrong person, having a child too soon, or isolating yourself. 

Our internal voice is so powerful that we often forget how loud it is and how much it’s running the show in every phase of our life. And what we don’t realize is that it has been running the show since we were small babes. 

The only way we can quiet this voice is by turning down the external noise. Then we can get curious about it, listen to it, and start to question its validity. 

We first must get curious in order to notice, then slow down long enough to let the felt sense in. These are the steps that get us closer to our truth about the lies we have told ourselves.

This is the power of presence, tuning into our bodies and asking the right questions.

We don’t have to live in a narrative that has steered the ship for so long. We can start to question and dismantle the old stories, and let ourselves tell a different story. 

When we open, soften, and rewire the lies that we tell ourselves, we can start to let in the part of us that knows who we are and what we truly desire.

Are We More Afraid of Dying or Living?

Death is one of the most common shared experiences in the human condition, and yet we spend most of our lives avoiding it. It usually doesn’t hit us until we experience the death of a loved one or pet. Then it cuts deep. If we let it. 

And depending on our capacity for grief, we might still avoid it. 

Whether or not we want to admit it or not, everyone around us will die, including us. And we don’t know when. Which makes it even more of a tough pill to swallow. 

Lately, it’s evident that everyone (including me) is trying to optimize their life to some extent in order to live longer and prolong death. Eat healthy, move our bodies, take all the supplements, connect with others. We do all the things so we can avoid death, or at least delay it. And maybe we can have a bangin’ body, feel better, and present well to the world in the process. 

But it got me thinking; are we more scared of dying or actually living? 

We got so used to avoiding death because of the obvious torture of the last 7 years…the pandemic, wars, injustice, inflation…all keeping us in survival mode. There has been an existential threat at every corner of the world and in our lives. And this isn’t just the external world. What has this done to our internal world? 

The real question is not whether we're scared of dying so much as have we lost our ability to really live. 

I’ve had to self-reflect on this recently as I’m helping people explore this question further while also exploring it within myself. What I’ve learned in the process is that asking deeper questions can help us understand our relationship to living fully. 

What actually makes us come alive? What activities bring out our aliveness? And who around us is expressing the same aliveness, where their energy has become contagious to us? 

These questions allow us the opportunity to fully understand how we want to live in the world, in our bodies, and within relationships. 

Then our focus on living fully can feel like a more useful endeavour than prolonging our death.

Why we play small

When I look back now, I can recall almost every time I’ve felt small in the past. In jobs, relationships, and within my family, I can name exact moments. Of course, I didn’t know at the time. Or maybe I did; I just didn’t have a name for it. 

The thing about smallness is that it can creep up without us even knowing. 

It can lead to us shrinking ourselves, suppressing our needs, or downplaying our gifts and skills. When it’s happening, we can feel like we are being accommodating, easygoing, the reliable one in a friendship, or negotiating our needs in areas where our partner lacks. We might even convince ourselves that this is the sacrifice we must make for our relationships or work.

The problem is that sooner or later we start feeling overwhelmed, tired, or resentful. 

The why we choose to play small—whether in a job or relationships is complex. 

For the most part, fear is what drives us to choose smallness. Whether it's the fear of change or the fear of being judged, criticized, or abandoned. Or maybe we simple dont want others to feel uncomfortable. 

And we often learn these messages early on. Maybe staying small kept us safe as kiddos. And this might have actually worked for our survival needs. 

But the truth is, as adults, it can ultimately cost us our sense of safety, identity, and sanity. 

So how do we get out of smallness and move toward greatness? We determine our needs, where we want to go, and what it will cost. And we move towards our inner knowing. We start to develop more compassion with ourselves. 

We take low-stakes risks that our nervous system can tolerate.

And slowly, we build tolerance toward our needs, desires, goals, and dreams.

What Change Actually Means

Being a therapist is the most compelling, heartbreaking, and meaningful job in the world. It’s also all-consuming and requires endless sacrifice, self-reflection, and self-care. 

After exploring the dark side of the soul all day, it can make socializing in the world a bit tricky. Even the idea of small talk can feel difficult most days. 

But I’m always humbled when I go out, and glad that I did. 

This past weekend, I was reminded why I love what I do. I was in conversation with a couple at a party, and the minute I mentioned what I do for work, there was silence. 

Soon enough, we were engaged in a discussion about the process of therapy and the meaning of human suffering. Then the question came out...the most common question I get asked: How do you know when people change? 

The truth is, it depends. 

It’s a complex question because internal change is not always visible to the external world. What people see on the outside and a felt sense of change are two different experiences.

If an identity shift has happened, there could be aspects of the client’s worldview that have changed. Maybe they start a new creative project, adopt a pet, or end a relationship that was unfulfilling. They could become softer, more attuned to their needs, more compassionate in their relationships. 

In subtler ways, it could show up physically in session at first—a sudden shift in posture, a red lipstick that feels out of character. Or, their language changes– how they describe their experiences, how they speak about themselves. 

It could also be cathartic and involve a big life change–grieving parts of themselves that they had been carrying from the past that needed to be tended to. A release that leads to an openness to possibility, realized hope, a new way of being.

The reality is, real change requires an identity shift. And that means we have to challenge old belief systems that have kept us stuck. 

Because the version of us that worked before won’t work if we want to step into a new way of being, a new life. 

Something must be surrendered to step into the new—whether it's leaving friendships that no longer serve us, making big career transitions, or finding honest, deep love in ourselves or others for the first time. 

We must figure out a new way of being and release old patterns.

And when a client asks me the question...How will I know that I’ve changed? 

I respond, when peace becomes attainable, presence becomes your norm, and truth becomes your way of being. 

The Unknown Is Where The Magic Happens

The cost of pursuing any new endeavor can feel terrifying at first. 

Whether it's changing jobs or ending a relationship–even thinking about the process can feel destabilizing. 

Mostly, because what if it doesn’t work out? What if we don’t find better, or worse–what if a wrong decision becomes one of our biggest regrets?

So, we don’t act; instead, we distract or numb. Maybe we become paralyzed, convince ourselves the issue will disappear, and wait until we have time to consider our options. 

The problem with this approach is that we can end up sleepwalking through life and increasing the odds of rationalizing unhealthy relationships and jobs in the future. 

One reason we avoid our issues is that betting on something without knowing the outcome feels risky. And we humans are generally risk-averse and avoid uncertainty at all costs.

But the truth is, life is full of uncertainty, and we must constantly navigate decisions where we don’t know the outcome.

So maybe an alternative is to ask ourselves more interesting questions. What will it cost me if I stay somewhere I don't belong? And what are the possibilities if I do get the outcome I hope for? When we do this, we can better understand our relationship to uncertainty and get curious about the unknown. 

It’s in this process that we learn more about ourselves.

And this is where magic and expansion can happen.