Faking It For Love (Read Time: 4 min.)

One of the ways that we deny ourselves the room to set healthy emotional boundaries comes in pretending to be someone we're not.  I remember being in a 10 year marriage and feeling like an imposter.  Who I was pretending to be was an appearance I couldn't possibly hold up.  I was afraid to be seen, horrified by the idea of being known.  At that point, being myself wasn't an option.  I kept thinking "What if he knew who I really was and how I really felt?  Would he want me then?" 

The truth is who I was never felt "good enough" so I denied myself the right to be me and, in doing so, usurped my power to set healthy emotional boundaries.  I bent over backwards to please.  I overextended myself for friends, family and my husband.  I beat myself up when I was tired and worked hard to push my true nature down when I'd feel that simmering level of discontent.  But that voice never went away.  You know the voice I'm talking about, the voice that says, "This won't work forever...  You deserve to be who you are... You don't have to apologize."

And one day the real me came pouring out.  I couldn't take living the lie anymore.  I couldn't keep pretending I was happy being an imposter when I was so far from happy, I couldn't see straight.  But when you wait til the point of emotional eruption to stand in your power, the opposite actually takes place. 

The glass house cracks, the foundation rips apart, and you're left in the rubble to pick up the broken pieces... a divorce, custody battle, and poverty stricken period later, that's what I was left with: the pieces of who I pretended to be mixed with the embers of who I was born to become. 

From there, I began to choose me.  I began to embrace myself: the good, the bad and the ugly.  I began to see that I deserved more than I had given myself, that I was worth more than the alter ego I was pretending to be and that I could say 'yes' or 'no' and not worry about other people's opinions of me because, honestly, what they thought of me was none of my business.

Don't get me wrong.  I still grapple with my alter ego.  There are moments when I feel myself conforming, working towards 'perfect' when all I really need to do is be real.  The difference between me five years ago and me today is this: I know I make mistakes.  I know I'm not perfect.  I know I can be hell on wheels some days and sweet as apple pie on others.  But I love my virtues and I love my vices and I refuse to apologize, defend, or cover up any of them.  That's what makes setting my emotional boundaries relatively easy. 

I'm now able to say: "This is me.  Take it or leave it" and feel good either way. 

Remember:

Faking it for love doesn't work. 

What love you obtain by deception you will lose by redemption,

yours and theirs.