What happens when the life you’re presenting and the life you’re actually living become too far apart for your integrity to tolerate?
I’ve been sitting with that question a lot lately.
A few days ago, my partner and I had a conversation where we both acknowledged that at times, we don’t feel compatible. During that conversation, he described the relationship as “too intense” for him.
I don’t know exactly what he meant by that. Maybe it was the relationship itself. Maybe it was the way I think, the way I communicate, the depth I want from conversations and connections. Maybe we simply want different things.
What I do know however, is that this time, those words didn’t send me into a spiral of questioning myself, for the first time ever my first thought was that’s ok. Instead of spiraling, my mind questioned the bigger picture of the situation. I started to ask myself honest questions, Are we right for each other? Are we too different? Do our values and standards align?
As I sat with his words and reflected on that conversation, I realised something important. This wasn’t just about questioning whether we were incompatible. I was recognising an old pattern that had resurfaced. One that had I acted on sooner, could have saved me from weeks of internal and external conflicts, delays and burnout.
I thought I was protecting my safety
I’ve recognised this pattern in almost every new relationship I’ve had, whether romantic, personal or business, but until now I’d struggled to really make sense of it and what it meant for me.
Before commitment, I’m completely myself. I’m open, honest, curious and expressive, I ask questions, join in with banter and not internalise every passing comment. I love to understand people, I want depth and being completely honest, I really don’t do well with surface level conversations or connections either.
But there in front of me was the pattern I’d refused to admit to myself for weeks. Once I commit, something changes inside of me, because suddenly there is something to lose. The safety I felt in the beginning becomes something I want to protect and without really noticing I’m doing it, I start to change.
I compromise more.
I think more carefully about what I say.
I question whether I’m asking for too much.
I become more conscious of the other person’s needs and, somewhere along the way my own needs start becoming negotiable. This isn’t about deliberately pretending to be someone I’m not, it’s much more subtle than that. Truthfully, it’s the old wound’s of fearing failure and abandonment. It’s about not wanting to mess it up and wanting to be able to hold onto the good thing I thought I’d found. A subconscious belief that if I can just be a little more adaptable, a little more understanding, a little less demanding, maybe I can keep the safety I felt at the beginning.
But eventually, the person I’m protecting the relationship for, isn’t the person I’m being, instead I’m becoming a smaller version of myself.
My business started to show me the truth
I’ve always been a strong believer that our personal and business lives will mirror each other in different ways. I’ve talked about it openly for years across social media and while speaking at events. So when I started struggling in my personal life, I couldn’t ignore what was happening in my business.
In the beginning, things really were good. The moments I shared were real. The joy was real. The experiences were real. It wasn’t some fake Instagram-able life I was creating for other people. As the time passed though and the misalignment became harder to ignore, I became more and more of a shell of myself. I’d gone back to being anxious and hyper vigilant constantly, I was exhausted, I was hurting and I just wanted to hide. Honestly I just didn’t have the energy to be seen, to articulate what I was feeling or externally express my thoughts.
And I couldn’t do what so many of us are encouraged to do online and simply put on a smile, create the content and carry on as though everything was fine. I can’t show up falsely.
It’s not who I am and more importantly, it is completely outside of my integrity.
I didn’t just pull back from social media, I shrank in every area of my life and business. I isolated myself. I had to take every hour as it came because I had so little energy left from masking to stay safe. Being transparent, there was a week where I was sleeping almost all day and all night.
And that was when I really started asking myself, what on earth is going on with me?
Because I had spent two years rebuilding my relationship with myself. Learning to love myself again, Learning to accept what I couldn’t change, Learning to trust myself.
So how on earth had I ended up here again?
And then I realised what was different
The difference wasn’t that I hadn’t fallen into the pattern.
I had…clearly
But the biggest difference was that I was seeing it much sooner.
I could feel myself shrinking, my voice getting quieter, the anxiety building as I moved further away from what I knew to be true for me and instead of continuing to disappear inside the relationship, I consciously and deliberately started coming back to myself. I knew this was the only way to give myself the clarity I was desperately searching for inside my fried nervous system and burnt out brain.
I started saying what I actually thought, with love and kindness obviously but with honesty always. I started acknowledging what I actually wanted. I started reconnecting with my needs, my dreams and the woman I had spent years learning to trust again.
And something shifted.
I felt more grounded, more energised, more alive, I started to feel like me again.
I’m not going to sit here and say I’ve completely broken the pattern. That wouldn’t be truthful, but this is the closest I’ve ever come to recognising it quickly enough to interrupt it, that’s what growth actually looks like, not never falling into an old pattern again, but recognising it sooner and being brave enough to observe and bold enough to act when we do.
Truth is my super fuel
I’ve realised something about myself through all of this. My truth really is my super fuel. When I’m connected to my truth, I have energy, I create, I communicate, I speak honestly, I take up space and I not only feel confident but that confidence is unshakable.
When I’m trying to make myself smaller to protect something, I lose all of that.
And it isn’t just in romantic relationships either, I can see it in friendships, business conversations, networking, partnerships and in the content I create.
When I’m living in alignment with myself, I expand. When I’m trying to be who I think someone else needs me to be, I shrink.
Confidence isn’t about never doubting yourself, it can simply be about trusting yourself enough to notice when you’re beginning to abandon yourself. So I’m leaving myself with a question, perhaps it’s one worth asking yourself too:
What happens when the life you’re presenting and the life you’re actually living become too far apart for your integrity to tolerate?
And perhaps the deeper question here is this:
Where are you shrinking yourself to protect something that once felt safe, and what might happen if you stopped protecting it and started reconnecting with your truth instead?
