What If You’re Tired Because You Miss Being Yourself? (How To Stop pretending)

Not all exhaustion comes from doing too much.

Some of it comes from being too little of who you are.

You know this tired. It’s deep.

It lives in the small, almost-invisible moments. 

The opinion you softened before you offered it. 

The idea that felt important to you a moment ago, but laughed off before anyone could respond. 

The whole day spent being responsible and capable and pleasant and useful - and then watching the sun go down and feeling nothing but hollow.

Just... absent from yourself.

Any bells ringing here? 

Maybe you've been doing this for so long that you've lost the thread. You can't find the line anymore between who you actually are and who you learned to be. 

The version you're performing isn't a lie - she's you. 

She's just filtered. 

Managed. 

Edited down to the parts that feel safe in the rooms you live in all day.

The sad thing? Some part of you is exhausted by her. 

Think about this for a second: what do you long for underneath the exhaustion? A pull toward something more honest, more alive, more you? 

We all have that kind of wistful feeling. You know who that is? That's the truest part of you, knocking from the inside: I'm still here. Can we please come home?

What does it mean to let them come home?

Ignoring What Fear Says About Grey Hair

It has vastly increased my courage supply to separate myself from fear - to personify him as a well-meaning but anxious little dragon I call Fred, who worries far more than he needs to.

Fear is a voice in your head, and mine has been building a case against me for months. I need to stop colouring my hair. The time has come. But Fred’s voice won’t give up his argument:

… grey hair means getting old

…getting old meant disappearing

…and disappearing means losing my identity. 

For a woman who teaches other women to stay visible and live fully, this is landing hard. I don’t think the grey hair is really the issue.

One day I finally asked myself what I ask every women I work with to ask herself: Who do I actually want to be? 

The answer came back clear: someone who doesn't shrink, no matter her age. 

Ok. What would that person do? Overrule Fred.  I started going grey - gradually, with my hairdresser - one step in the direction of being exactly who I say I am. 

When I made that decision, you know - I felt kind of excited. I had been putting aside a part of myself and now I’m reaching out and embracing it.

What Fear Can’t Take Away

There's a name I have for the parts of yourself that have been getting set aside.

We trade them in for qualities that feel too bold for the rooms you move through. 

…The way we’re too soft when someone is struggling

.…The way we’re too intense when we our passion shows

.…The way our quirks and crazy sense of humor are too strange. 

The directness you trained yourself to sand down. 

The creative streak you tucked away when life got serious. 

The depth that someone, at some point, called "a lot to handle". 

The care you showed less of because you'd learned it made you look weak.

I call any and all of this your very personal Strange Jewels.

Don’t ever lose them. The soft. The intense. The depth...or the laugh.

Actually, you can’t lose them. They're wired into you. You just learned to manage them so carefully that they stopped feeling like gifts and started feeling like you didn’t fit in. They’re bright yellow in a world of plain beige.

They're not only special - they're the most real parts of you.

Living in alignment with who you are isn't about becoming someone new. 

The alignment you're reaching for isn't a different self.

It's permission to fully inhabit the one you already are.

A return. Home. To yourself.

You don't have to do this loudly. 

You don't have to announce it to anyone. 

You don't have to change everything at once.

You just have to start letting yourself be honest in one small place.

How to start is next...

Your Tiny Brave Steps

The 90-second one. 

Right now, name one quality in yourself that you've been managing, shoving away, or keeping small. Just name it - no one else needs to know.

Say this with me and my grey hair: this is part of me. It belongs here.

The five-minute one. 

Write down three words that describe who you actually are - not your role at work, not who you are in your family, but the real, unmanaged version of you. Then circle the word that feels most hidden right now. That's the Strange Jewel asking to come back.

The one that takes a little courage. 

Choose one place this week - one conversation, one moment, one small decision - and let the real version of you show up there. No performance. No editing. Just you.

It doesn't have to be huge or even visible. It just has to be truly you.