“Follow your heart” seems like pretty simple advice. Executing it may be tough, but understanding it? That’s supposed to be a cinch. The slam dunk part of the equation is generally thought of as the part where you know what your heart desires.
It’s the doing the thing, the putting yourself out there, that’s supposed to be the scary part.
However, I’ve found that the even more frightening scenario is when you go to take a look inside your heart to find out what’s in there, only to find an empty room and some dust gathering in the corners. How do you follow your heart when it’s broken? When it’s empty, or tired, or not sure what it wants?
I’ve chased external goals like having kids, having an enriching partnership, excelling in my career, traveling the world and making money. I found out after a lot of trial and error that while each of those things brought happiness to my life, whether I’ve achieved them or am still trying, I’m still chasing down the answer to the question of “What does my heart want?”
I fill ninety percent of my time with being productive, as a way of coping with the deep-held belief that I am unworthy of love unless I am achieving something. I absorbed this idea from experiences during my childhood, which involve people I still love very much. I will not share details now. But I will share that I grew up in a household where children were to be “seen and not heard”. Where big emotions equaled big problems, and it was better to keep things inside rather than rock the boat and risk blowback. In an environment where your opinion is not valued and your emotions are unacceptable unless controlled, it’s easy to fall into the thought trap of, “Maybe I’ll receive love if I earn it. Maybe achieving goals is the answer to feeling unlovable.”
For most of my life I have cared very deeply about what others think of me, to my own detriment. I have based my value on other peoples’ opinion of me. I have convinced myself that I am “too much” and that it would be best for everyone, including my family and best friends, if I always maintain a mask of meeting everyone else’s expectations. That has worked for a long time in terms of maintaining “normal” relationships, personal and professional, but it has partially rotted away my internal landscape.
In elementary school I was given the advice “Fake it until you make it” by someone I deeply trusted, after I had a disagreement with some friends. I had lost my temper and yelled at the other little girls and they didn’t want to talk to me anymore. The advice was from a place of love; this trusted person didn’t want to see me continue to express my big emotions in ways that would ostracize me. What she and I didn’t understand, and what I do now, is that her advice, though well-intentioned, cemented the idea in my head that I needed to conform to be loved, not be myself.
From first grade until now, I have had the personal goal of never ruffling feathers. Never being offensive, or too much, too loud, too anything. There are times I have offended others, and I still replay many of them in my head. There are times I’ve let my feelings out in public; I have always felt very ashamed of doing so. I’ll do it in doses, but talking about my feelings is always a highly-regulated internal process where I never expose everything. Just enough. I don’t like to be vulnerable because it feels dangerous. Like I’ll be punished. Typing this is very uncomfortable. I feel snakes in my stomach and the sort of light-headed feeling you get after saying something that maybe you shouldn’t have said.
As I grew up, I found out pretty quickly that I could say how I actually felt about some things if I was funny, so I leaned into being funny. It felt like a rush, saying things that made my friends or family laugh. I always felt a little hollow after a night of making people laugh though. I still do. I guess you’d probably feel hollow too, if you felt you weren’t really capable of being genuine, just being entertaining.
I thought I was genuine for a long time because I put others first, tried to be kind and didn’t stir the pot. I realize now I was just being a martyr and people-pleaser. Putting everyone else’s needs before your own seems nice on the surface, but:
when you feel shitty afterward because you didn’t actually say how you felt;
weren’t real about your expectations and;
you were hoping someone would do something nice for you because you did it first, it’s not genuine. It’s just cheating yourself and the ones you love. I still do it.
I got into a fight with my partner recently. The details aren’t important. What matters is that I wanted to pretend I wasn’t being a victim, but I was.
It’s easy to say things are happening to me, or I’m soooo stressed because I have to do this or that, but the reality is that if I’m grumpy and stressed about the things going on in my life, it’s because I’m choosing that attitude.
It’s even easier to blame someone else for my lack of direction, or my feelings of helplessness, especially if we’ve been through some really intense seasons together. That’s a really easy path and I’ve walked it more times than I can count. It’s pretty well-worn at this point and I’m sick of it. Which leads us back to the beginning.
My heart is broken in part because it got broken when I was a kid, and in part because I kept it broken. I did that through misguided attempts at protecting myself, like hiding my true self or becoming a victim, which turned out to be keeping me exactly where I started: broken. I’m unable to follow my heart because it’s hurt and doesn’t know what it wants. There’s only one solution, and it really scares me.
I have to be myself.
So instead of trying to be casually witty or sound really smart at this point, I’ll just tell you some of who I am now, and then we can get back to product coverage. Or whatever I decide to write next.
Hi, I’m Hayley.
I have deep emotions, a quick temper and love to take care of other people, even if I don’t know how to take care of myself. I love animals, I don’t drink enough water and I wonder if I’m starting to look old. I yell when I’m mad and I feel guilty about that. I love reading books, spending time in the sun and being alone. Or with my family. Writing is the only thing I ever seriously pictured myself doing, and I’m thankful I’ve been able to pursue it as my career. I can be mean when I want to, and I don’t like that. I do like making jokes and being silly, but I won’t let you see it until I know you a little better. I like music but a lot of the time when I drive, there’s nothing playing. I take myself, other people and life too seriously, and wish all the time I could be “chill”, but I don’t think I am. I have a big heart and even though it’s broken now I think I’m starting to figure out how to fix it. I feel uncomfortable sharing this but sometimes growth is painful. C'est la vie.
If you’ve made it here, I appreciate you spending this time with me. Thank you. See you next week.
Thank you for this one... it struck a cord with me that I didn't know was there, in a way I didn't know I needed.
I feel soooo much of this :-) Well done, lady!