Unlearning Me

There is a unique, quiet kind of grief that comes with getting wiser. It’s something I truly wish someone had warned me about when I first started waking up to my own life. We’re taught to view personal growth like it’s some cute little additive process—like we’re just stacking new achievements, better habits, and deeper relationships onto the person we already are. Let me be real with you: the realest, most brutal growth I have ever experienced wasn't about adding a damn thing; it was about subtraction.

It was the terrifying, liberating process of looking at the ideas, traditions, and common sense I was raised on and realizing they were actually just a cage someone else built for me. Cutting away from every day, socially acceptable beliefs is easily one of the most isolating things you can do. Yet, I promise you, on the other side of that terror is the only version of you that will ever feel real.

When we are young, we inherit a pre-packaged worldview that our families, cultures, and communities hand us a script long before we ever learn how to think for ourselves. We wear those hand-me-down beliefs like clothes that don’t quite fit—they pinch, they restrict our movement, and they make us look crazy—but because everyone around us is wearing the exact same raggedy uniform, we assume that’s just how life is supposed to feel. There is a deep comfort and safety in that shared compliance, a validation that grants us a seat at the table as long as we keep our mouths shut and never question the narrative. Eventually, if you are paying attention, the coat gets way too small, and you start noticing the glaring contradictions in the traditions you're told to respect, realizing they are often just peer pressure from people who aren't even here anymore.

So, if you are just now starting to feel that first itch of doubt, I need you to give yourself some major grace. In that moment when the matrix glitches, it is going to feel like a crisis before it ever feels like freedom. You’ll find yourself asking questions you were taught to suppress. Then wondering, "why am I grinding my years away for a lifestyle you don’t even want?" Or why you are letting yourself feel consumed by guilt for setting a boundary with someone just because you share their DNA? The people around you are absolutely going to get uncomfortable when you start pulling at those loose threads, and they might try to tell you that you’ve changed. Tell you that you’re "lost", or that you’re "acting brand new". Please understand, with all the compassion in my heart, that their anger is rarely about you. It is about the fact that your awakening shines a bright, uncomfortable spotlight on their own compliance, forcing them to look at what they are still swallowing just to get by.

To truly seek your own truth, you have to be willing to sit in the messy, quiet space of not knowing all the answers. Letting go of old programming like the belief that your worth is tied to your suffering. Or the belief that peace is something you should sacrifice just to keep everyone else comfortable. I used to think that keeping the peace meant silencing my own soul. I learned the hard way that peace bought with your own silence is just a slow-burning war against yourself. Now, I look back at the woman I used to be—the one who scrambled for approval and fought to take up space—and I don't judge her! I hold her close, because she did the best she could with the tools she had, and she survived long enough to hand the reins over to the woman I am today.

Living in your own truth is the ultimate act of sovereignty, though it might cost you some seats at tables where you no longer belong. But the freedom of breathing air that is entirely your own is worth every single loss. Let them talk! The first time you make a major life choice based purely on your own internal compass, without checking to see if the ghosts of your upbringing approve, you will feel a weight lift off your chest that you didn't even know you were carrying. You are allowed to outgrow the life you were handed, you are allowed to rewrite the rules, and you are allowed to dress yourself in a truth that actually fits. It takes time, and it takes an immense amount of courage, but you are entirely capable of burning that old script and finally stepping into your own light.