Secrets are like calluses upon our hearts. The more we keep, the more hardened we become…

I spent so many years hiding. Not trusting myself, doubting who I was, being so frustrated with the world and what I perceived to be a weakness that I lied about everything. I did not want to be seen as “weak”.

Pursuing validation and acceptance in all the “wrong ways”, I lost my path. I pretended to be someone I wasn’t to protect my fragile heart that felt broken. The lies compounded and I had to work harder to maintain the facade.

Aggression, fighting, abrasiveness, ensuring I “won the argument”. I was always right, self-righteous, arrogant, and as a result lonely, distant, and drowning in self-pity, self-loathing, and self-hatred…

You see, as a child, I felt I was never really seen, recognized, or heard. I had to fight to be accepted. As a result, I kept to myself, contorting my thoughts and actions to fit in, be liked, or not be beaten.

This worked for a while, but when I hit my teens, puberty, and confusion, I lashed out, hid from the world with false bravado, and developed a habit around “fitting in”, being cool and appeasing others, whilst ensuring I was perceived as strong.

My ideas around healthy masculinity and what it meant to be a man became distorted and I played that out in my intimate relationships. I pretended I hid, I justified my lies, infidelity, and anger and became more hardened and more lost.

I believed and carried this fear and burden like fucking Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders that if “softened” and allowed others in that I would lose my “strength”. I feared giving my heart because it had been crushed by those I loved so deeply as a child (my parents) and I couldn’t trust that heart to be kept safe.

Our past does not equal our future… Time to let that shit go…

Are you ready? 

One is glad to be of service.

Photo by lucas clarysse on Unsplash

STEFANOS SIFANDOS

Relational Alchemist, Speaker & Author