Was that me today (or my Pretend self)?

She sat in her office with the door closed.

Not because she needed to focus. Because she needed a minute before anyone saw her face.

She had done something that felt right. She had spoken from the part of her that actually knew what was needed. And then, an hour later, been told it was the wrong move.

Not harshly. Professionally. But clearly.

Now she was sitting with the specific grief of being corrected for being yourself.

I have been in that room. Not as the woman behind the closed door, but as the one who sat with her afterward. 

As an executive assistant, I watched women I respected go through this more times than I want to count. 

Made to feel foolish in a meeting. 

Shut down in front of a room. 

Left wondering if what they did was stupid, or worse, if they were.

And what I said, more than once, was this.

"This is not life or death."

Someone disagreeing with your action does not mean the action was wrong. It might just mean you were being yourself in a room that wanted something else.

That is a very different problem.

And it is worth knowing the difference.

Are you ready?

Your Pretend Self Slips In Slowly

Most women in leadership do not arrive at that office moment suddenly. It happens over years.

Small adjustments.

Learning the room.

Reading who holds power and what they want to hear.

Becoming fluent in a language that is not quite your own.

You stop saying the honest thing and say the diplomatic thing.

You stop making the call you believe in and make the one that will create the least friction.

You get very good at it.

The translation becomes automatic. You walk into rooms already edited.

It is not a false life. It is a practical one.

But it has a cost you do not fully account for until you are driving home at the end of a week, or standing at the kitchen counter after everyone else has gone to bed, asking yourself the question that has no place in a performance review.

Was that me today?

Not: did I do well. Not: did they approve. Just, underneath all of it.

Was that actually me in the room? Or my 'pretend' self?

Was That Me Pretending I Like Hunting?

I know how this story goes from the inside.

Years ago, I was dating a man I genuinely wanted to choose me. So I became the woman I thought he would choose. 

I went rabbit hunting. I sat on cold logs with a fishing rod in hand. I walked through bear country pretending that flies and mud and the absence of a hotel shower were not slowly killing me inside.

I am a city girl. That's not a flaw. That's just true.

But I had decided that who I actually was might not be enough. So I performed a version of myself that I thought had better odds. And after long enough, the question that lived at the end of every day got harder to answer.

Was that me?

Or someone I decided I needed to be?

The answer lies in how much colour you want in your life.

What Color Do You Want To Live?

Surviving has a color. After enough years of it, you know it well.

It is bland beige. Or grey.

Safe. Unremarkable. The colour of a woman who has learned to filter herself so automatically that she can no longer always feel the filter working.

The longing underneath is not ambition. It is not a title or a number. It is older and more specific than that.

It is the wish to look back at a day, a year, a life, and say: I was there. Not a version of me.

Me.

That longing is one of the most honest things inside you. And it paints a life with bright oranges and yellows and shocking pinks.

How do you get there?

To BE You, You Have To Observe Yourself

It boils down to this.

The life you are longing for is not entirely ahead of you. Parts of it are already here. Already lived.

The honest thing you said in a conversation that surprised even you.

The decision no one else saw, but that came from the right place.

The time you held your ground, briefly, imperfectly.

Those moments exist. You haven't been counting them.

But they are proof, proof that the woman you are trying to become is not a stranger. She has already shown up. You just have not been keeping her record.

I call it a Courage Container.

Not a list of achievements. A record of the moments when you were real. Like a journal or a scrapbook or whatever suits you.

When you look at it honestly, you get excited.

You stop measuring the distance between who you are and who you wish you were. You start to see the ground already covered.

Most of us spend our energy measuring the gap, the distance between where we are and where we thought we would be by now.

The Courage Container turns you around to see what you have already walked through.

Not to lower the bar.

To see the gain, not the gap.

And once you can see it, you want more of it.

So let's do this.

A Tiny Brave Step

You do not build this in a single day. But you can start the record today.

The 90-second version: Think of one moment from the last month when you showed up as yourself, even imperfectly. Name it. Write it somewhere. Let it count. No buts. Just: that happened. That was me.

The 5-minute version: Before today ends, choose one moment where you will be real instead of right. One honest sentence. One decision made from what you want, not from what makes sense to the room. Write it down at the end of the day. Let it be your first entry, or your next one.

That is where it starts.

If you want help finding what your step looks like, visit the Tiny Brave Steps Generator at www.tinybravesteps.com and try this prompt: "Help me find one honest act I could take today that would let me look back tonight and say: I showed up."

That step is yours.