Here’s a 9-question assessment that will help you identify occasions when you may not be fully expressing the truth, or your truth. Simply “check off” those that apply to thoughts you’ve harbored and actions you’ve taken over the last six months.
Have you:
- Wanted to say something to a friend or family member, but didn’t for fear of being criticized or ostracized?
- Closed up in a conversation with a partner because you feared his/her response?
- Desperately wanted to share your opinion at work but feared doing so would risk damaging your reputation?
- Though you felt really down, you perked up with a smile and said, “Good!” when asked “How are you doing”?
- Acted strong and positive so everyone would think you had it all together–when in reality, you felt lost and unsure?
- Agreed with something you didn’t believe in?
- Agreed to do something you didn’t want to do?
- Told a “white lie” to improve people’s perceptions of you, whether at work, on a resume, or with friends?
- Presented yourself as having more material wealth than you really do? i.e., lived beyond your means in order to project an image of success?
Where you “checked-off” those that applies, how does it feel to suppress what is true for you?
In all of these cases, you’d been hiding, protecting yourself. Acting-as-if. I like to call it. And why do we Act-as-if? Because it benefits us in some way! Here are some examples as to how you may be benefiting from not fully expressing your truth:
- Protects you from being hurt, judged negatively, and let down, which might result if you told the truth.
- Allows you to be everything you’re not. You’re hiding the parts of you that you’ve never liked, in order to become the person you think you should be.
- Allows you to be liked and popular.
- Allows you to stay in close relationships even when there is great toxicity.
But what is it costing you?? Here are a few that I‘ve felt:
- Being accepted by those who liked me for the person I was pretending to be, not for who I really was.
- The strongest relationships became those where I tended to stay quiet or be agreeable so I could avoid conflict or disagreement.
- Being popular in circles of people who hardly knew me.
- Staying at a job or maintaining friendships that I really didn’t enjoy or nourish me.
All of these examples cost me the ability to truly be happy, joyful and free. Rather than seek personal fulfillment and happiness I kept pretending because it felt less risky.
After I admitted my “fakeness” to myself, for quite some time I felt pain and anguish everywhere I went, whatever the circumstance. Even when I was alone I felt people were looking at me with skeptical eyes because I was so skeptical of myself. I then started looking at everyone with whom I came in contact with the same way that I felt they were looking at me. I’d say to myself, “Everyone must be just like I am, so whom do I believe?” This brought me to a place where I felt so alone, so unworthy, and so hopeless.
Have you experienced it? Even in a room full of hundreds of people, you feel as if you are solo, in a plastic bubble that separates you from the rest of the world. I’m sure you have.
The costs are so deep. They’re too deep.
It is only when your armor begins cracking that your life begins to change for the better.
Congratulations for being willing to notice that you’re not always honest–with yourself or with others. This doesn’t make you bad. In fact, there are perfectly understandable explanations for why you’ve been acting-as-if. Actually for so many of us it’s simply learned behavior to “keep the peace” in families, at work, and in relationships. For me I believe it started with the fact that somewhere along the way I took on the feeling of being un-worthy and until I was able to admit my mis-truths I was not able to feel like I had become worthy. I hope you will join me in honoring ourselves as women and taking action to change that!
How does one start to change and build the necessary feeling of self-worth you ask? The short answer: whatever it takes.
Even something as elemental as looking in the mirror and reciting over and over again, “I’m good, I’m capable, I’m no longer afraid to be myself.” Or to write those words however many times it requires for that message to sink into your consciousness. Believe you are worth it! And give US the gift to truly know you — for you are the one-and- only YOU!
