dear jojo,
what’s your advice for someone who is finally coming into themselves after years of being an extreme people pleaser/losing herself in others? i know myself better than i ever have but i still carry this guilt about letting others dictate my life for so long. besides saying fuck it and continuing to live as authentically as i can, do you have any other advice?
sincerely,
newly me
dear new,
the journey toward our authentic selves is the longest one we have to travel in this lifetime. it’s also the only journey that’s really worth going on, so luckily you chose the right one.
i think for me what comes up in your question is mostly this question of getting rid of the guilt you’re carrying. is it possible that you feel guilt both for how long you let others dictate how you lived and expressed yourself, and also for no longer doing so? it’s incredibly common (especially in women) to feel guilt after setting boundaries or otherwise standing up for ourselves, since we’ve been conditioned by the last several thousand years of western civilization to be obedient and not do that. so - the good news is, you don’t have to do anything with your guilt. you can choose to directly address it, or acknowledge it, or honor it in some way so that it doesn’t feel neglected by you, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. guilt, like anything else that comes up for us, is some combination of biology and stimuli and social conditioning. you’ll probably never be able to live a guilt free life. but what you can do is keep showing up as your most authentic self in all your interactions, until it becomes so normal that the guilt doesn’t really know what to do.
we usually feel guilt while we’re in the middle of these big life transitions, because we’re doing new things and we’re setting new boundaries and our brains and bodies typically don’t know what to do with the unknown besides set out alarm signals. that’s okay - we evolved to be afraid of the unknown. it’s totally natural. and isn’t this sort of guilt just a sort of roadblock that our anxiety throws up whenever we’re straying too far from the known? if you do want to tackle your guilt head on, may i suggest writing some sort of affirmations? if you’re anything like me, the idea of standing in front of a mirror and telling your reflection that you’re beautiful is awkward, if not downright cringe-worthy to consider. what you want to do instead of that is write specific affirmations, the kind that actually resonate with you and will make you want to read them out loud or check in with them when you’re feeling ungrounded or otherwise not up to par. i have a list of my own that i keep in my iphone notes so i can read them when i’m feeling unsettled or i feel silly showing up as myself (which still happens occasionally, although nowhere near as much as it used to). here’s a few that you’re free to use or borrow or base your own off of:
i am consciously choosing to participate in my own life.
this will not kill me, and i will not let it.
i claim my desires as radically as i can, knowing that doing so aligns me with my life’s power and purpose.
gut feelings are my guardian angels.
i am unifying my selves, even the ones i don’t let drive the car anymore.
not too corny, right? if you feel like you want to pursue this path of actively checking your guilt at the door when it comes in, there’s a very good elizabeth gilbert quote from big magic where she talks about how fear is essentially creativity’s conjoined twin. if you are committed to living authentically, you will have to deal with fear, and guilt, and shame, and rejection. they are the flip side of living a good life (although ultimately, they are much smaller prices to pay than we think they are). but you can do what gilbert suggests, which is essentially this: your guilt (or fear, or whatever else) will probably never totally go away, not completely, not permanently. but instead of letting it control you, or take over what happens, you can instead make space for it. essentially, you can allow your guilt to coexist with your feeling of self-authenticity, with the joy your new life is bringing you, with the satisfaction you get every time you make a choice or act in a way that aligns with your sense of being. you just can’t let it in the driver’s seat.
instead of thinking of your guilt as a problem, try to view it with curiosity. notice when it pops up. is it more prevalent with certain people? does it come out most when you’re alone and reflecting on all the time you spent not aligned with your higher self? does it pop up when you set a boundary? if you can look at your feelings and say, well, that’s interesting, instead of, oh, god, what a tragedy, i guarantee you half your problems will cease to feel like problems. journal about your guilt. talk to a therapist about it. give yourself pep talks in the shower. examine it like it’s a separate entity, one you can study and categorize and begin to understand. pretend you’re being interviewed by oprah or somebody else in 15 years and they’re asking you about this period of your life, the period where you started blossoming. pretend she’s asking you what you started doing differently.
most of all, though, do the things that make you feel alive. i don’t know what those are for you, but i know they’re worth pursuing, every one of them. i feel guilt and anxiety over a million different things over the course of the week, most of which i have no real control over. i worry that i’ll never make it as an artist or that i won’t have enough money for rent this month or that everyone i love hates me. i feel guilt when i set boundaries with my partner, and when i get frustrated with my cats when they won’t stop crying while i’m trying to finish an essay, and for not calling my mom enough. but i don’t feel guilty when i’m cooking myself a good meal, or when i enter a flow state in the middle of a piece i’m working on, or when i’m blasting music and dancing in my underwear getting ready to go out. make room for those things, the things that counteract your guilt by making you feel so expansive, and vibrant, and full that guilt has no room at the party. and yeah, the guilt will come back later. it almost always does. but at least you’ll have built something cool in the meantime.
another way to check your guilt at the door instead of carrying it with you all the time is to reframe your authenticity as a net good. what you’re doing isn’t just for your own benefit. when you claim your authentic self and you begin showing up in the world as the most you version of yourself that you can show up as, you do everyone else a favor. you give other people the permission to show up as themselves. you help teach the people around you that it’s okay to change, that they can let themselves flow in and out of different stages without worrying that no one will love them anymore if they start showing up differently. you give others the gift of being more present. when we’re bogged down by doing what others want us to do and filled with the secret resentment of not living our lives the way we really want to, that resentment can take over our whole brain. or if we’re not resentful, we’re so concerned with what everyone else thinks of us that we can’t actually be there for life as it’s happening, because our brain is too full of anxiety to be present.
authenticity equals presence; inauthenticity equals absence. when you show up as your authentic self, speak your truth, and set and hold boundaries with others, you are giving those others a huge gift, too. it may feel like setting boundaries or saying no to someone is selfish, but ultimately what you’re saying when you set a boundary is this: i trust you and value our relationship enough to have this difficult conversation. i love you too much to just do what i think you want me to do and then be filled with resentment over it later on. this is especially true when we use our newfound sense of self to call out other’s bad behaviors. they may not thank you for it in the moment, but ultimately, when i look back on my own life and think of the people who set boundaries with me and held me accountable, i’m grateful that they cared enough about me to call me on my shit. nobody heals in a vacuum; we all need each other to be present and show up and call us out on our bs if we want to grow.
finally - i know it can be hard to look back and see how poorly we let others treat us. it can be painful and mortifying and make us feel ashamed to think about how long we lived our life in a way that was deeply unaligned with the actual life we want to be living. but - and i think this is a big but - we only change when we’re ready to. and this isn’t me saying that you have to suffer heavily to become yourself, or that we should allow ourselves to hit rock bottom with every little thing in our life because otherwise we won’t be in enough pain to do something differently. all i’m saying is that all the time you spent not living authentically is exactly the reason why you do want to live authentically now. that experience - of being walked over, of denying your heart’s true desires, of letting other people dictate for you what your life should look like - was all preparation for this, even if it didn’t feel like it at the time.
everything you’ve ever done has led you to this moment. everything you’ve ever experienced has prepared you for living. you did what you had to do to survive the cards you were dealt. and now you are old enough, and wise enough, and strong enough, to move beyond mere survival. thank your past for giving you what it gave you. thank everyone who taught you how you didn’t want to be treated. thank your past self for every time it betrayed you, so that now you can know that you don’t want to betray yourself anymore. you’re here. you’re young. your guilt probably isn’t going to disappear overnight. but then again, neither are you.
xoxo,
jojo
~ enjoy my writing? consider subscribing to my patreon, becoming a paid (or free!) subscriber to my newsletter, or giving $5 a month for exclusive, extra advice column content! your donations help give me more time to write and otherwise make art in this world. sharing is also caring! if you enjoyed this week’s column, feel free to send it to friends or post it to your socials to help get the word out. either way, thank you for reading & i appreciate you being here! ~