Speaker 1: Us studious. Hello, friend, welcome back to the stillness. Jourtle.
Speaker 1: I am maya, and I am glad you are here.
Speaker 1: Settle in, take a breath, Let the day outside this
Speaker 1: moment fall away for a little while. There is nowhere
Speaker 1: else you need to be right now to day's reflection
Speaker 1: is for anyone who has been asked how are you
Speaker 1: and answered I am fine, when the truer answer was
Speaker 1: something else, entirely, for any one who has been carrying
Speaker 1: a heaviness that no one around them seems to notice.
Speaker 1: For any one who has smiled through a meeting, or
Speaker 1: a laugh through a message, or said all good when
Speaker 1: the inside of their chest felt anything. But we have
Speaker 1: a complicated relationship with honesty in this culture. We say
Speaker 1: we value truth, we say we admire authenticity, and yet
Speaker 1: when someone actually answers the question honestly, when someone says
Speaker 1: I am not okay, I am struggling, I am tired
Speaker 1: in a way that sleep will not fix, we do
Speaker 1: not always know what to do with it. We get uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: we try to fix it quickly. We offer a small platitude,
Speaker 1: a bright suggestion, a silver lining, as if the discomfort
Speaker 1: of witnessing some one else's pain is the thing we
Speaker 1: most need to resolve, and so we learn very early
Speaker 1: to perform okay. We learn to translate the inside of
Speaker 1: our experience into something more acceptable for the outside world.
Speaker 1: We learn to round down the heaviness so it does
Speaker 1: not make the people around us uneasy. We learn to
Speaker 1: keep the tears for the drive home, or the shower,
Speaker 1: or the moment after everyone has left the room. We
Speaker 1: learn to be the steady one, the okay one, the
Speaker 1: one who seems to have it together, and we get
Speaker 1: very good at it. The cost of this performance is
Speaker 1: something we rarely talk about. We talk about burnout, we
Speaker 1: talk about anxiety, we talk about overwhelm, but we do
Speaker 1: not often name the very specific cost of living inside
Speaker 1: a story that is not quite true. The cost of
Speaker 1: waking up each morning and immediately putting on the okay
Speaker 1: face before we have even had a chance to feel
Speaker 1: what is actually there. The cost of being so practiced
Speaker 1: at the translation that we no longer know what the
Speaker 1: original language felt like. The cost of losing access to
Speaker 1: our own interior weather because we are so busy reporting
Speaker 1: a forecast that is easier for everyone else to hear.
Speaker 1: And there is another cost we do not name the
Speaker 1: cost of not being seen. When we perform okay, we
Speaker 1: make ourselves invisible in the very way we are most visible.
Speaker 1: We show up, but we do not We speak, but
Speaker 1: we do not say the truer thing. We are present,
Speaker 1: but we are not known, And to be known is
Speaker 1: one of the deepest hungers of the human heart. We
Speaker 1: were made for it. We were made for the kind
Speaker 1: of seeing that goes beyond the surface, the kind that
Speaker 1: meets the inside of a person as well as the outside.
Speaker 1: But that kind of scene cannot happen if we keep
Speaker 1: the inside of us carefully hidden behind the okay story.
Speaker 1: I think about how exhausting it must be to be
Speaker 1: a person who is always fine. I think about the
Speaker 1: weight of carrying an unspoken heaviness through every ordinary day.
Speaker 1: I think about the small relief of finally finally telling
Speaker 1: someone the truer thing and being met with a face
Speaker 1: that does not flinch, with words that do not rush
Speaker 1: to repair. There's so much relief available to us, friend,
Speaker 1: there is so much ease on the other side of
Speaker 1: the truer sad sentence. But we have to say it first.
Speaker 1: We have to be the ones willing to risk the
Speaker 1: small awkwardness of the honest answer, and we have to
Speaker 1: be willing also to receive that same honesty from the
Speaker 1: people we love, instead of rushing to make them feel
Speaker 1: better before they have even finished saying what is true.
Speaker 1: This is not about sharing everything with everyone. This is
Speaker 1: not about unloading on the people in your life who
Speaker 1: do not have the capacity to hold what you carry.
Speaker 1: Honesty is not the same as indiscriminate disclosure. Honesty is
Speaker 1: the willingness to admit to yourself first what is actually true,
Speaker 1: To look at the inside of your own experience without
Speaker 1: rushing past it, without papering over it with a brighter interpretation,
Speaker 1: without arguing yourself out of the feeling you are actually having.
Speaker 1: The body is often where the unokayness lives. First. The
Speaker 1: body does not perform okay. The body cannot smile its
Speaker 1: way through a clenched jaw. The body cannot say all
Speaker 1: good when the shoulders are creeping toward the ears. The
Speaker 1: body cannot pretend when the breath has gotten shallow, or
Speaker 1: the chest has gotten tight, or the smallest frustration has
Speaker 1: started to feel enormous. The body is the truthful part
Speaker 1: of us. The body is the place where the unsaid
Speaker 1: things collect and make themselves known. If you have been
Speaker 1: feeling some of these signals, friend, I want to suggest
Speaker 1: that they are not a problem to be solved. They
Speaker 1: are not a sign that you are failing at being
Speaker 1: a person. They are a sign that something true is
Speaker 1: trying to get your attention. The body is not complaining,
Speaker 1: The body is communicating, and the message almost always is
Speaker 1: some version of this. Something is heavier than you have
Speaker 1: been letting yourself admit. Something needs to be said, or
Speaker 1: wrested from or allowed. Something needs you to stop performing
Speaker 1: the okay face long enough to feel what is actually there.
Speaker 1: This is the practice I want to offer you today,
Speaker 1: the practice of not translating, the practice of letting the
Speaker 1: answer be what the answer is, even when the answer
Speaker 1: is uncomfortable, even when the answer is something you do
Speaker 1: not know what to do with. Even when the answer
Speaker 1: is just I don't know, or I am not okay,
Speaker 1: or I am tired in a way that has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with sleep. The practice is not to fix
Speaker 1: any of these The practice is to let them be said.
Speaker 1: There is a particular kind of freedom that comes with
Speaker 1: this practice, a freedom that does not look like happiness exactly.
Speaker 1: It looks more like relief. It looks like setting down
Speaker 1: a heavy bag you have been carrying through the grocery store,
Speaker 1: through the meeting, through the school pickup, through the bedtime routine.
Speaker 1: It looks like your shoulders dropping a quarter inch. It
Speaker 1: looks like your breath getting a little deeper without you
Speaker 1: having to try. It looks like your eyes softening because
Speaker 1: they are no longer working so hard to keep the
Speaker 1: okay story in place. And here is the thing I
Speaker 1: want you to know. You do not have to wait
Speaker 1: for someone else to give you permission to be honest
Speaker 1: with yourself. You do not need a special moment, or
Speaker 1: a perfect listener or a quiet room. You can do
Speaker 1: this in the middle of an ordinary day. You can
Speaker 1: do it while washing a dish, or sitting in a
Speaker 1: parked car, or waiting for the kettle to boil. You
Speaker 1: can pause, just for a breath and ask yourself the
Speaker 1: question you have been avoiding. Not to fix anything, just
Speaker 1: to admit, just to say yes, this is how it
Speaker 1: is right now, Just to be in the same room
Speaker 1: as your own truth without turning away. Some of us
Speaker 1: were taught that admitting we are not okay is a
Speaker 1: form of weakness, that it burdens the people around us,
Speaker 1: that it makes us less lovable, less capable, less worthy
Speaker 1: of the kind of life we want. I want to
Speaker 1: generally suggest that this is the opposite of the truth.
Speaker 1: The people who love you do not love you because
Speaker 1: you are always fine. They love you because you are you,
Speaker 1: And the more honest version of you is not less lovable.
Speaker 1: The more honest version of you is more reachable. They
Speaker 1: have been waiting, in some quiet way for the truer
Speaker 1: version to show up. They have been waiting to know
Speaker 1: you instead of the performance of you. Here is a
Speaker 1: small practice for you this week. Find one trusted place
Speaker 1: or one trusted person where you can answer the question honestly.
Speaker 1: It does not have to be a long conversation. It
Speaker 1: does not have to include details. It can be as
Speaker 1: small as to telling your partner I am not okay
Speaker 1: today and then letting the silence after those words be
Speaker 1: a real silence, not a silence you rush to fill.
Speaker 1: It can be texting a friend can we talk, I
Speaker 1: am struggling, and then not apologizing for the heaviness of
Speaker 1: the message. It can be writing in a journal just
Speaker 1: for yourself, just for the practice of letting the truer sentence,
Speaker 1: land on a page that does not judge you for it.
Speaker 1: Notice what happens in your body when you do this.
Speaker 1: Notice what happens in your breathing, Notice what happens in
Speaker 1: the soft space behind your eyes. I think you will find, friend,
Speaker 1: that the honesty is not the breaking point you have
Speaker 1: been fearing. The honesty is the opening. It is the
Speaker 1: small crack in the okay performance that led some light
Speaker 1: and some air and some relief into a room that
Speaker 1: has gotten very stuffy from keeping everything in. You are
Speaker 1: not required to be fine. You never were. The world
Speaker 1: has been making do with the version of you that
Speaker 1: performs okay, But that version was never the whole truth
Speaker 1: of you. The whole truth of you includes the heaviness
Speaker 1: and the not knowing, and the days when the to
Speaker 1: do list feels too long, and the mornings when getting
Speaker 1: out of bed feels like a small achievement in itself.
Speaker 1: The whole truth of you includes all of that. And
Speaker 1: the whole truth of you is the one I am
Speaker 1: talking to right now. Thank you for being here with
Speaker 1: me today. Thank you for the honesty of showing up
Speaker 1: to listen, even on a day when you are not
Speaker 1: sure you are okay, that showing up counts, that showing
Speaker 1: up is enough. I'll see you next time in the
Speaker 1: next Stillness Journal. Until then, be gentle with yourself, and
Speaker 1: let the truer answer be the one you offer, at
Speaker 1: least to yourself in the quiet rooms of your own heart.