This is a truth that took much spiritual travel, sleepless nights, and pockets full of anxiety to get to.

Living as a false self, lying to the world (and myself), pretending, putting on a brave face, being who the world expected me to be...was perhaps easier, softer, safer. At least on the outside.

But my insides (my secrets, my longings, my pain) were in airtight lockdown. I was too afraid to be real.

Inauthenticity is really self-denial at it's best and self-hatred at it's worst.

How can you love what you deny? Impossible.

I wanted more than anything to be heard. Seen. Known.

But I had wrapped myself up in too many layers of protection and stripped down my emotions until I was numb.

And in doing so, I couldn't truly get close to anyone. Not the way I yearned to.

But the journey I was on that had me in the valleys was the same path that would bring me to level ground again, and eventually, miraculously, to heights I never could've imagined.

I had to keep shedding things as I walked, crawled, and clawed my way along. I had to drop the baggage I was dragging in the dirt behind me, leaving a cloud of blackness. Boots of preservation meant to kept my feet dry and me surviving only ended up stomping my aliveness down.Feelings of unworthiness. Regrets of things I had said and done. Versions of myself that were not truly me. Coats of self-protection. Blankets of anxiety and panic.

I had to drop it all and stare unblinkingly at my naked soul. It was the only way to I knew of to finally be heard and seen and known......

to finally fully hear and see and know myself.

Once I got to that place deep inside, I could no longer not be true to myself.

And once you are true to yourself, you cannot be false to anyone else.

#RealTalk #authenticity #realself #Anxiety #Healing

This post originally appeared on my blog's FB page:
Faith in the Mess - Melissa Neeb, Writer.

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