The Distance Between Who You Are and Who You Think You Should Be

Much of our suffering comes from the distance between the life we are living and the life we believe we should be living.

Between who we are…

and who we think we need to become.

Sometimes we wear certain roles for so long that we forget where other people expectations end and where we begin.

The professional who never makes mistakes.

The parent who has to hold everything together.

The partner who must always understand.

The leader who can never show fear.

These roles may serve us for a while.

But carrying a version of ourselves every day takes enormous energy.

Eventually, the cost becomes impossible to ignore.

Perhaps living with greater ease is not about becoming someone else.

Perhaps it is about slowly closing the distance between the person you show the world and the person you truly are.

A few questions to reflect on:

• Was there a time in your life when you learned you had to hide part of yourself to be accepted?
• Which part?
• Who do you feel you need to be in order to feel enough?
• What might change if you simply allowed yourself to be who you are?