The Lie of Certainty

The trek that is our journey is rarely manicured and easy to follow. There are times when I knew where I needed to go and in order to get there I had to create the path. There was no bare earth under my feet because I had not walked this direction before. It was overgrown, unclaimed. In these moments of uncertainty I was the very thing I was dismantling.

Preaching growth while fighting the internal programming of my old systems. I helped others discover self awareness while I punished myself for being human when I had a moment alone. I taught presence while not always recognizing when I was white knuckling control. I collaborated to build frameworks of freedom while living inside the confines of my brain’s search for safety. I mistook pressure and deadlines for purpose. I thought fear was discipline.

The hypocrisy was surgical, maybe even beautiful. On the surface everyone saw the calm and thought it was mastery with precision. But churning beneath the zen presence was a head filled with fear and anxiety.

And then I stepped back. Took a breath. And I saw it.

The programming I learned from my upbringing.

The identity I adorned.

The certainty I had been wearing like well tailored suit.

In that moment I wasn’t leading. I was performing.

And I was damn good at it.

If we are honest, most of us are.

But,

performance ends.

Presence doesn’t.

You see, performance is easy to teach. Presence is the difficult lesson.

It’s waiting for us to step back and see the path for what it is.

My edge never came from control. It came from surrender. The kind of surrender that removes all you have until it’s just you. I learned, after years of doing it the wrong way, that feeling like I had it “right” is a cheap high. Take a hit, feel alive and in control, competent, unmatched. But like with any high, the crash is coming. And the crash is where you might just find out who you are if you don’t immediately chase the high again.

So this is where I hand you the mirror. The permission to step back. To look.

Take a breath and move into the work. Lean into the storm without the safety nets you’ve convinced yourself you need. Find your favorite chair and have a seat in the spaces you feel exposed, incompetent and stay a while.

Then

say the words you were taught strong people who are certain of their beliefs and identity never say,

“I don’t know.”

I know it’s not comfortable. If I’m being fully honest, it sucks. But it is the place honesty resides.

Try it with someone who looks up to you.

Try it with someone who you’re a little intimidated by.

Try it alone.

Allow the anxiety and panic to rise.

Let the ego tremble a bit.

Let the old identity you’ve been living through crack.

Because when you stop performing with certainty, you stop performing the version of yourself others helped you construct.

This is the moment when you can finally see clearly. Finally feel fully. Finally lead well. Finally enjoy the life you have. Not because you are right. Not because you feel in control.

But because for the first time you’re awake, breathing crisp, clean air.

Freedom, real freedom, comes when you allow the world you’ve constructed to be what it is without needing to hold it all together. When you stop experiencing your value through someone else’s eyes. When you stop performing so you can feel like you belong.

These days I work differently. I’m not softer. I’m not harder. I can simply see more clearly. I’ve sat down the glasses I was handed by my culture, my family and the countless others along the way.

Don’t think I’ve stopped chasing precision, because I still do. But I chase it without my filters and my desire for control. I build systems that can expand and breath rather than suffocate. I lead with the curiosity to learn because I am certain of nothing.

And if I’ve stopped learning, I’m moving away from who I am and who I will be next.

Maybe that’s what this life actually is. Perhaps it’s the art of dying before you die. Not the Christian concept of “dying to self”. I’m talking about dying to your need to feel in control, of chasing validation, of the identity you were handed and told to be. It’s the art of shedding your ego, your need for safety, your perfectly emotional armor, and the illusion of control. Until all that’s left is the beauty that lies in the abyss of uncertainty.

In it all, I know only what I know today and I’m fucking excited to learn what I have yet to imagine.