“fake it till you make it” is part of the part of the problem.

You know that desire you have of belonging, of fully merging with a community and relationships who really see you… it will require you to give up this advice.

This expression is a covert expectation that demands us to perform ease and non-need even when we may be struggling with a change, relationship, role, or experience.

But when does this process ever feel like ease?

And not like peeling off a scab?

When does it really get the results you want?

The connection you want?

And maybe you do get what you want by faking it.

And you are waiting for it to “click in”,

To feel right

To feel natural

To feel yours.

what I often find here is that it doesn’t- and I have been here many times so you can take it from me.

It doesn’t ever end up feeling like mine. Because it isn’t. If I have to change and alter myself internally and externally It isn’t really for me at all.

They don’t love me. I am not perfect for the job. Not apart of the community.

They love what I have contorted myself to be.

This makes my muscles ache, my teeth grind, and leaves a hollow feeling in my heart. When I listen close, I can almost hear it saying,

“Why not me?”

Maybe this capitalistic expectation to push through everything around us with an armor of perfection and non-need is actually keeping us from receiving the actual experiences we want. Shoving us in to spaces that were never really meant for us anyway. Because? It just felt like the right thing to do? Because I might die if I’m not validated and loved by every space I find myself in? Because that was what I was told people did to survive???

If I can belong as a forced version of myself into ANY experience, connection, and opportunity,

That also implies the existence of belonging for a version of myself that doesn’t have to contort to fit. The circle may be smaller- but It will always be the right size.

The times when I have been the most successful in this life,

In my business,

In my relationships,

In my emotional health

Is when I throw “fake it” completely out the window and I root into my own authenticity.

Even when it’s messy, unfinished, uncertain, low, fatigued, trying my best, not trying my best,

I let myself show up as just me.

This process is easier said than done. I am still challenging myself to show up in increasingly more real and honest ways.

After a life time of “just fake it”, authenticity can be hard to find.

Pushed into the shadows as deemed

Not good enough Not professional enough Not smart enough Not lovable enough

Not insert here enough

So we change and conform and contort.

Eventually we stop looking for spaces for our authentic self completely as we lose sight of what we wanted and needed in the first place.

This is literally how people end up living a life they hate.

I have fallen victim to this process many times.

I have rejected myself again and again and again by becoming exactly what someone needs that is outside my desired frequency.

So, what can we do about it? How can we begin to shift from self rejection to radical acceptance?

Repairing the “just fake it till u make it” wound requires us to excavate our energetic field for the people, authorities, and systems that provided us the original rejections that told our soul self who we are right now isn’t enough.

It’s likely the energies of these people/systems are still active in the energetic space in present time- making the option of self rejection seem ohhh so easy and simple.

Notice how it feels when we are playing out the energy of the rejector and not ourselves. What kinds of thoughts, body sensations, beliefs, narratives pop up when we are in the vibration of the rejector. Let these be a cue to you to redirect, recenter, and release so that we may challenge that energy.

Then we have to do the scary part. We have to actually show up in the most honest way we can muster. Against the energy that is demanding you falsify and hide. Give me your unenthused, your weary, your anxious. Show up in the way that makes the rejector in your space squirm. You will feel it as a resistance, a repelling- take this feeling as VALIDATION that what you are doing is literally losening the grip the rejector has on your energy.

Overtime, the more we challenge this energy by showing up in our raw, in our human, in our ugly we unhook the attachments we have to please our inner rejector as we gather real time evidence of where we are accepted, welcomed, and even celebrated for who we are. We realize that we didn’t die and are maybe even safe maybe even encouraged as you are.

We start to build a new understanding of how much of ourselves we can bring instead of confirming to a phantom of the past.

It’s also possible that we may also get real time evidence where we are not accepted for this humanness.

The rejector would want this to feel like a failure, to deeply affect our self image.

I want you to gather these evidences and celebrate them as divine redirectors- beacons that point the way to greener pastures. And again, validate that even in present rejection, you didn’t die, you are safe, and now you have some very useful information. This in my eyes is a win.

I choose to believe that for every person, role, or space, that cannot hold you there is one that is just waiting for someone exactly like you.

So practice receiving these non-acceptances as if you are looking down at your internal compass needle changing directions.

Validate and soothe the parts of yourself who miss the safe walls of the facade.

And continue.

Eventually,

Showing up as you are will feel easier and we just may find exactly the spaces, connections, and experiences that we are looking for.

Because they too are looking for us and we are letting ourself be visible.

May we all find spaces, humans, and experiences that are in alignment with our present day frequency. May we all learn to accept ourselves enough to feel worthy of stepping into the light.

Madison Lang

08/16/2023