once the illusion has been exposed, make a decision and act on it

i kept receiving the intuitive nudges, but fear and scarcity kept me captive to the allure. thankfully, my grandmother’s prayers covered me then, now and they always will.

Mar 18, 2024

You cannot enslave a mind that knows itself. That values itself. That understands itself.

—Wangarĩ Maathai

when you know better…

Shame can have you telling all sorts of stories. Unfortunately, these stories can be so grand and gilded that they seem irrefutable and true. Sometimes, especially when we do not have an interrupting apparatus to break the cycle of shame and guilt, the stories become our identities. Predictably, we then proceed to use all means necessary to preserve and protect our identities. We forget that these identities are merely ghosts; they are a hall of broken mirrors.

When the pain of facing our truths seems too great to bear, we choose to take the shape of these incomplete narratives about who we are. When asked to drop the mask we have been wearing for so long, we might fear to do so because we no longer recognize ourselves. So we keep the mask on, and we continue playing out the story in our minds that meets our immediate wants, even at the expense of our greatest needs. Sometimes, we perform the stories that others have created about us (whether they asked for our consent or not).

clarity versus conviction

In conversation with a dear friend recently, I was reminded of the difference between clarity and conviction. It is one thing to know what you should do. It is another to commit to acting on it. Conviction is perhaps a layer deeper or a level higher than clarity—where direction matches movement. Conviction has a sense of sustained or growing momentum.

Reading this, you probably understand the difference between clarity and conviction as you recall a time when you were clear on what you ought to do about something but had not yet come into agreement with yourself to act on what you knew.

For me, when I am clear on what I should do but choose not to act accordingly, my body feels heavier than usual. I feel sluggish accompanied by fogginess. Where at first I had clarity, my thoughts and intuition slowly become covered up by an increasingly dense fog and I find myself running in spirals. I have come to learn that when I stall or delay making a move, the result is that the clarity I once had sinks beneath the made-up narratives that I allow into my mind/gut. I relinquish my power to the “what ifs” and un-materialized fears.

In some previous experiences, I relinquished my power to someone else—to the point where I began to see myself through their eyes; defining my worth by their standards. Such self-abandonment was a lesson too painful to repeat; so I have been shamelessly and relentlessly taking my power back consistently through protecting my sense of clarity and persisting through conviction.

I wonder, what practices and principles do you have in place that allow you to access your clarity amidst the noise and distractions?
Who/what transforms your sense of clarity into bold conviction? Simply put, what is it that gives your clarity momentum?

metaphysics of distraction (continued)

Trust is earned—remember that.

Many will want to pitch in with their advice, comments, and opinions about the decisions you are making, especially when those decisions are public, foreign to them or counter to how “things have always been done”. You do not hold the reign over what people say about you—so let them speak. What you must remember is to be crystal clear about whose opinion/advice you choose to trust. Those that have earned your trust, can have your ear—but first and foremost, you must trust yourself.

While I could draw from multiple instances in my life, I want to focus on a time when I doubted the needs of my own body and psyche because I gave my power to someone whom I, at one point, trusted. I was in the early phases of recovering from burnout and invited this person to come with me to the beach later in the week to soak in some sunshine and step away from our computer screens. It felt like such an innocent ask, and quite honestly, I was so excited that I would have something small to look forward to amidst the incredibly tiring and difficult week I was having. To my shock, when I offered up this suggestion, I was met with cold words to the tune of, “Why don’t you put in some more work first before you think of going to rest at the beach?”

Years have passed since this incident, but something about the sharp and piercing coldness of the moment is stored in my memory. At that moment, I recall quickly deflating like a balloon and pulling back on my enthusiasm. It felt as though I was a tyre that had landed on a sharp needle on the road—and slowly, the air began to leak out of me. It took me a long while to disentangle myself from the feelings of shame that had held me hostage to that moment. When I say a while, I mean more than a year.

Shame, especially when one feels lonely and isolated, can keep you trapped and gasping for air. This feeling of shame also felt heavier than usual because I was already so low on energy and did not feel like I had it in me to defend myself and my needs. This shame was not tied to this single incident. Rather, it was an accumulation of moments of invalidation and devaluation coupled with deeply ingrained stories I had come to believe about my sense of worth(lessness).

Thankfully, illusions end. This illusion about having to prove that I was worthy of resting ended. As I worked with discipline to tend to core wounds around abandonment, the mask began to fall off slowly and then all at once. I saw clearly how far I had moved from my authentic self. I saw with clarity how much I too had abandoned myself; how lost I was in confusion as I desperately searched for acceptance from the wrong places and people. I was thankful that the fog of illusion had cleared. But no one prepared me for the grief that accompanies clarity.

Sometimes, we claim that we “want to know the truth” about ourselves or about a dynamic we are in. However, when the truth comes knocking, we are also the same people who choose to send a representative of ourselves to greet the truth at the door.

Often, we think that we cannot bear to go and sit with the truth that comes knocking. Why? Because we know that once we know the truth, we cannot “unknow” it. We also know that we will be called to act on what we now know, and that might mean letting go of the fallacies/lies we have been repeatedly telling ourselves.

Beloved, grief will come. Let us begin by accepting that. And on some days, that grief will feel insurmountable. Grief, to some, will feel like an iceberg that purposely wants to interrupt our scenic voyage. Grief, to others, looks like the monster under the bed, or the monster who stands behind us when we face our reflections in the mirror. Grief, we tell ourselves, will break us. And some of us are not sure we can recover from the breakage/brokenness. You can recover. You will recover, I promise. And even better.

relationships as a sandbox

I have had to call my power back multiple times. I mean, I have had to stand on mountain summits and shout to the top of my lungs, echoing through a canyon until I heard my power calling back to me. I have had to retrain myself to identify that inner still voice and listen to her amidst the noise, opinions and distractions that abound. Trusting myself again is not an optional endeavour; it is a commitment rooted in a deep sense of conviction. I now realize that allowing my needs to be dictated by the capacities and sensitivities of others has not and will not serve me.

I have had to learn what it is to individuate while remaining interdependent.

I value my relationships—especially the ones with the people who I trust and who trust me. At the same time, I have also learned how to practice naming my needs and simultaneously be in relationship with those who can honour my needs without feeling threatened, suffocated, or in competition with them.

Thankfully, my current core relationships are a sandbox of “boundaried care”. Each of us knows how to tune into ourselves, how to stay sovereign/self-determined and be in healthy relationships with one another. We trust each other with our needs because we are clear on our boundaries and can communicate them with kindness. We encourage each other to show up with clarity. My current core relationships are my sandbox of practising self-attunement, sharing with clarity and acting with conviction.

practice: who is in the sandbox with you?

Take a moment here to reflect on who is in your core circle. The few chosen people who you trust with your wins and losses. Those that give you room to explore the multitudes of who you are, but also have the integrity and accountability to call you back when you have wandered too far from your self-defined values. Note the names of those people who are not threatened by your evolution, and are simultaneously committed to their ongoing transformation. As you reflect on these people, tune into what about your relationship with them supports you to develop and protect a sense of clarity and conviction.

Ask yourself:

In what ways does my relationship with [name] add to or detract from my sense of clarity and conviction about my dreams/goals/values?
What instances can I recall when [name] has shown me that they honour me when I am clear about my needs and boundaries?
When I recently made a decision about [insert situation] and acted on it, how did [name] respond?
How much of what I believe about myself is tied to what [name] thinks or says about me? Why?
Do I trust myself with my decisions and actions when I am around [name]?

… do better

At the beginning and end of it, you must trust yourself.

What that means is that, first, you will need to take your mask off and face your raw reflection in the mirror. When it comes to honesty, always start by telling the truth to yourself first. Following that, you will need to “fire” all the representatives you had sent out on your behalf to keep the truth company while you were busy playing pretend out in the world. This is how you recall your power—by exposing your own deceptions.

Yes, clarity has its costs. But I can also tell you that the rewards of silencing distractions and choosing to tune into your inner signal are innumerable. Beyond that, the impact of what you do from a place of empowered clarity will root you in a sense of peace, purpose and power that surpasses all understanding.

There will come a moment when choosing to show up as anything other than your full and worthy self will feel unappetizing and quite frankly, exhausting. At this point, you will observe how your relationships will begin to get a tune-up. The ripples of your transformation are inevitable. As you change, so does the web of relationships connected to you.

As your relationships shift, please remember that it is not your mandate to bring everyone with you. You may invite them to witness or participate in this new phase of your journey, but you cannot force people to take it with you. This does not mean you are to face life hyper-independent, isolated and alone. Rather, it is a nudge to get clear on what relationships are invested in your growth and choose to nurture those.

Through it all, I urge you to choose truth even in the face of shattering grief. When you are genuine in your search for truth, deceptions and illusions will eventually be exposed. Once the illusion has been exposed, make a decision and act on it.