“When I was a little girl,” she told me, “I could picture my heart glowing and filling the room with sparkles. Now it feels like my heart is wearing a girdle.”
She’s a client - an aspiring writer - who came to me because she wanted a life that felt bigger than the one she’d been living.
Bigger voice.
Bigger relationships.
Bigger sense of herself in the room.
She wasn’t looking for fame or a more complicated life, just one that felt like more of a match.
In truth, she’d built a beautiful life and she was proud of that, but too much of it felt like a front.
The nice house and nice clothes that were evidence of her corporate success masked a creative spirit locked inside.
The independence, travel and friends stretching around the globe no longer felt like a reasonable trade off for the love, intimacy and partnership she’d always dreamed of.
The things that mattered most to her were the places where she felt most vulnerable and least worthy. It makes sense that those were the places she’d been playing it small and safe for decades.
And I could tell you countless other stories with different players - different details - different insecurities…
A loving home, soul-mate and grown children, but nothing that feels like it’s really hers.
Money, attention, and notoriety with no one close enough for her to believe that she’s ever been loved.
Or nothing particularly wrong at all, just a constant, nagging feeling that she’s been hiding from her life.
Every one of them - including that sparkly-hearted little girl - hit threshold at some point in life that said, “what if I’m not actually who I think/hope I am?”
At that point not enough becomes an operating system that builds a life that can’t possibly feel like it is enough.
So they did the work.
They talked to the gurus, read all the books, listened to the podcasts…
Own your worth.
You deserve it.
Fake it till you make it.
It makes sense, right? To install the opposite belief.
Unworthy becomes I’m WORTHY!
Ashamed becomes I’m PROUD!
Small becomes I’m BIG!
Look in the mirror, say it with feeling, and go out and act as if it’s true.
That advice isn’t wrong, exactly.
It’s just given too early.
And that’s why it backfires.
Unfortunately, behavior alone doesn’t dictate outcome.
Your energy plays a role.
My son is famous for walking into a room and (correctly) saying, “What’s going on in here? The vibes are weird.”
While we may not all be as tuned in as he is, every human has a pretty keen set of spidey senses that go off whenever the vibes are, in fact, weird.
And when we’re faking it?
Sister, those vibes are really weird.
In the gap between those old, limiting beliefs and actually believing the new thing, you’re not acting from worth.
You’re acting from need.
Need has a vibe.
And it’s not a good one.
All those owning your power, main-character energy, taking up space performances are not energetically neutral.
They say I need you to see, know and accept me as worthy.
And, energetically, that’s a far cry from I am worthy.
The worst part is that while you’re out there doing your best, being brave, and doing hard things, all anyone notices is that the vibes are weird.
And they don’t even notice that they notice. Their under-the-radar spidey senses just tell them to take a step back.
Of course, you’re crushed.
Because behind the polite smiles, your spidey senses confirm the rejection and your brain picks it up as another piece of evidence that you’re not who you thought/hoped you were.
So the need increases.
The faking it gets harder.
The vibes get weirder.
You’re stuck in a loop that has nothing to do with what you think, and everything to do with everybody’s nervous systems.
That’s where we begin.
We have to remove the need - settle your nervous system - fix the vibes.
That means starting with okay.
It means finding your version of I can be okay even when I’m not okay.
I can be okay even when everything around me is not okay.
I can find a floor of safety that doesn’t depend on external circumstances.
I can be grateful for what is here with me in this moment - even when it’s not what I want.
I can always find light, or beauty, or peace because those things are mine to create and determine.
Let me be exclamation point clear here - I am not asking you to put lipstick on a pig, engage in positive thinking, or pretend - for even one minute - that you don’t want what you want.
And I’ll never ask you to lie to yourself.
I’m suggesting that this thing - once you find access to it - is the actual entry point.
My aspiring author client (who became an actual author) didn’t get her bigger life by deciding to be big.
She got it by tuning in to her own agency, breathing into her own nervous system, finding her own center often enough to stop needing affirmation of who she already was.
That part is impossible to fake.
So the vibes are groovy.
And people lean in.
You never needed the exclamation point to be confident.
Not to write.
Not to lead.
Not to create, love, or grow.
Confidence is simply the absence of need.
And in the absence of need, every heart becomes a glowing, sparkly magnet for everything that’s truly aligned with it.
If you recognize yourself in the confidence loop, this is exactly the kind of thing we do in private coaching.
Not helping you perform confidence more convincingly. Helping you find the place underneath the performance where you no longer need to.
If something in your life feels ready to get bigger, but some part of you keeps pulling you back toward safety, let’s talk.
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