Making The Man In The Dark And Light The Same Man

​Some of our greatest unhappiness lives in the gap between who we are and who we pretend to be.

When how we act looks like how the world wants us to act, the world tends to applaud. It gives us likes, promotions, invitations, belonging.

It says, “Yes, that’s it. That’s how you’re supposed to be.”

But applause and peace are not the same thing.

Most of us learn early how to read the room. We learn what gets smiles. What gets approval. What keeps us safe. So we become fluent in performance long before we become fluent in ourselves.

But there is a price to be paid when our performance becomes more of a show for the world than a show of ourselves.

For a while, it works. People think we’re doing well. We look functional. Responsible. Put together. We are being what the world needs from us. But slowly something else begins to ache. Because there is a quiet cost to living as a version of yourself that was built for everyone else.

I’ve had many sleepless nights in my life, lying awake, wrestling in the dark with the man I dragged home from the light of day.

It's exhaustion. It's a nighttime of the body and soul screaming "This isn't me. This is who I learned to be."

But when the man in the dark gets committed to looking like the man in the light, something different happens.

Relief. Alignment. A sense of peace and contentment and joy that no amount of approval ever gave us.

Our nervous systems thrives under the cloud of truth. As does our heart and soul and spirit. From the moment we stop asking, "How should I be?" and start asking, "Who am I when I'm not afraid to be who I am?" life changes.

The world might be happier when you look the way it wants you to, but chances are YOU will be happier when you finally look like you. The question then becomes, whose happiness are you most committed to serving?

And I should say, I am not a big believer in chasing happiness, but when happiness becomes a natural consequence of living in your truth, it starts to feel like happiness has been chasing you.

And that is a chase I can fully embrace.

In the light AND in the dark....