There are people who aren’t going to like you no matter what you do
What is the best advice you’ve ever been given?
I visited a psychic in Sedona a few years ago. She told me,
“There are people who don’t like you right now. There are people who aren’t going to like you no matter what you do. You might as well just be yourself because at least then you would be happy.”
That stung.
How could she say such a thing to me? The thought of people not liking me felt like a slap to the face.
I have spent my whole life doing emotional gymnastics and shapeshifting to hide anything about myself that someone else might find unsavory. I aimed to be the most palatable person possible.
I have to acknowledge that this paid off in some ways. I never got in trouble in school. I got good grades. I had friends. When I got older I became a model employee. I never called in sick or showed up late.
Now I am approaching 40 years old and I don’t feel like I truly know myself.
I decided to get to know myself
When the anxiety and fatigue of analyzing and shifting who I needed to be in every situation got to be too much, I decided to finally listen to the advice I was given all those years ago.
I began investing in myself. I went back to therapy. I have worked with a few coaches who have held me and loved me as I figure out who I am at my core.
I began learning about things that interested me. I started with Reiki and Tarot, then dove into astrology. I learned about crystals, the moon, and how to live intentionally.
I began to make peace with my trauma and get to know what I liked and disliked.
I was terrified to let myself be seen. It was all so new to me. Yet, I felt fully alive and excited about life again.
I suppressed large parts of myself for most of my life because I was teased for being “too sensitive” and I was called a “know-it-all”. We all have these scars from childhood; the mislabeled compartments of our souls we shut the door on never disappear. They patiently wait for us to rediscover them.
Turns out, I love teaching and writing. My favorite thing is witnessing someone else discover the magic within themselves. I’m actually really good at taking large, abstract concepts and helping others understand how to use that knowledge to make their lives better.
My sensitivity is a gift, not a burden. It gives me an immense capacity to hold empathy for you.
I’m super creative. I love making art. I love designing classes and programs. I love creating graphics for my social media feeds. I shut the door on my creativity because I was afraid that someone would criticize what I had made.
This is not easy. It’s really fucking painful to realize that I spent years of my life doing everything I could to be the most likeable, immemorable, invisible person on the planet. But dammit, that psychic was right. There were people that still didn’t like me.
Worse yet, there were countless people who liked me but didn’t actually know me. They only knew the parts of me that I chose to show them. They liked the person I molded myself to be.
Even worse than that, there were a lot of people who took advantage of my kindness and sensitivity. They fed off of my energy when they needed a sympathetic ear. I allowed myself to be a toxic dump for other people’s emotional garbage because I thought I was earning their approval.
I feel a lot of compassion for that part of myself. I had absolutely no boundaries. I got so good at people-pleasing and suppressing my feelings that I didn’t know what thoughts and opinions were mine and what belonged to others.
Entrepreneurship as a tool for healing
Entrepreneurship has been a catalyst for an enormous amount of personal healing. It takes a lot of guts to create something and release it to the internet and hope that someone else finds value in it.
Building a business has been incredibly freeing and also triggers the shit out of me every day. It is full of highs and lows. I spent a lot of time searching for the version of me that would be the most successful. The internet contains the best and the worst of humanity. It is not possible to put something out there that everyone is going to like.
But that didn’t stop me from trying. Spoiler alert: it didn’t take me long to burn out and lose faith in myself.
Recently, I have been focusing my energy on building a business that works for me. Instead of transplanting all of the things I hate about my 9 to 5 and taking on the role of mean boss to myself, I’ve looked for simplicity and grace.
I get down on myself because entrepreneurship feeds my creative flame to the point that it turns into a wildfire. I have a ton of ideas, and all of them would be a wonderful way to serve humanity in a way that lights me up. It’s hard to focus on one exciting project before another is banging at my door.
I am building a playground. I’m erecting the boundaries and designing the equipment to facilitate optimal joy and pleasure. There is room for all of my passion because I am the architect and I decide the dimensions.
I know that I’m not meant to build my playground with anyone else’s blueprint. That is really exciting and terrifying at the same time. But I am all in, I’m here to discover the possibilities.
The advice I got from the psychic was deceptively simple. I know that there are always going to be people that don’t like me, no matter what I do. The difference between now and then is that I have built up the courage to not give a fuck. Now I am free.
Wanna stay in touch? I send out an email newsletter with journal prompts and reflection questions at each new moon and full moon. Plus, I will give you my Self-Care Menu PDF as a little bonus.
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