I'm OK
As life unfolds we are met with some pretty hard things that we feel can’t be conquered without shame and guilt hovering over us. It is because of shame and guilt that we allow situations to force us into fight or flight mode. I like to say that these encounters force us into Lie mode. You may say what is lie mode? Well, my friend we tell ourselves; I’m OK. when we want to hide from ourselves or others. We fear being blamed, alienated, rejected and at times even the center of attention. When someone comes along that cares enough to engage, we say "I’m ok" without even noticing that we are lying not to others‘ but to ourselves. Yep! We lie. And why do we lie?
I believe that we lie because we feel that we are protecting ourselves. But what if the person that you should be protecting is YOU from you? Most times when we lie we commit to that lie and we become slaves to that lie. We make the lie the truth in order to feel safe. The danger is when we have told the lie so long that we become the lie. Have you ever created a story about your life that you tell in order to make your life more glamorous? I have. I will never forget that I was in the grocery store and I ran into a old high school comrade. She acted as though she was elated to see me. I knew that this was about to become a peacock fest. She went on and on about her marriage, children, her job and that her children were honor roll students. Me on the other hand was melting into the floor because i hadn’t accomplished any of that. I’m not married nor do I have children. I stood there in great anticipation for it to be my turn. Yes. I down played my life because it didn’t seem as interesting as her story. Or so I thought. She seemed to be extremely jealous and intrigued that I wasn’t married and didn’t have children to worry about. She said that she would go back to my “boring” life in a heart beat.
I was so confused. I thought that being married and bragging about your children was the All American Dream. I thought that having those two things would brand me as successful and happy. I was awakened. I was sold to the lie of trying to protect me. I was saying all the while that I was ok. I was saying that I needed to lie aka down play my reality in order to be accepted. In order to contribute to the conversation, I needed to find a similarity. Lying does nothing but birth anxiety. Lying doesn’t protect. The crazy thing is, it’s the biggest scam I’ve ever seen. I admonish you to embrace the real you and divorce the I’m ok lie. Your reality just may remind someone that differences are reminders that give them a brief relief of their busy life. I dare you to recognize that your fears are protesting against who you really are. Don’t allow I’m ok to force you to lie.
