But if you let this influence how you show up in the world, you’ll limit your creative potential, alienate the people who can most uplift you, squander your opportunities for financial freedom, and fail to step bravely into your true purpose. I’m not suggesting you need to speak every thought you think. Some people are just plain rude under the guise of “speaking my truth.” But every time you fail to express what is true for you, you activate a stress response that weakens your body’s natural self-healing mechanisms and puts your body at risk. Plus, you violate your soul. And if you don’t learn to honor the quiet rumblings of the soul, the Universe may smack you over the head until you start honoring your truth. If you find yourself morphing to fit your social surroundings, you’re probably afraid others won’t like you if you’re different. And sometimes you’re right. The price of authenticity is that you won’t comfortably fit in everywhere. But it’s worth the risk, because only when you’re brave enough to be unapologetically YOU will you truly find your people. Of course, women are guilty of lying and men are guilty of shaming her truth, too. But in male/female dynamics, men can be particularly guilty of lying and women tend to get hurt if men are truthful and then shame them if they’re not. It’s lose-lose. We’re better off dealing with our fear and finding the courage to love and respect each other’s truth, without shame. They say, “Oh, I love Lady Gaga.” And you say, “OMG, I love her too!” Even though you don’t. That’s just fear in a Little Monster disguise. This is why people nod their heads in that scene with Julia Roberts in the movie Runaway Bride, where she doesn’t know how she likes her eggs for breaksfast because she’s been copying every man she dates. You forget that the ones who really love you just want YOU, not some copycat version of you. In order to feel nurtured by our true soul communities, we have to overcome the fear of rejection that comes with worrying that others won’t like us when we’re being ourselves. When you deal with your fear of what everyone else is thinking, you’re better able to practice what my friend Stella Osorojos calls “now-walking” — staying in present time, free from fear, navigating only what presents itself right here, right now. Then your whole life becomes a love letter to that true self. After all, that’s just the Divine manifesting through you as the pure essence of who you really are. Which is much too beautiful, precious, and unique to hide behind a mask.
