Author: Sheri

The Most Important Bank Account

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The most important bank account has nothing to do with your 401K.

            It’s not the number of stocks or annuities in your retirement portfolio, nor the percent of interest accruing in your money market account. It isn’t the bonus received or expected from work or the amount of dollars in your checking and savings.

            The most important bank account isn’t measured in cryptocurrency, gold, or one’s investment in semi-conductors. Those values, like everything else fiscally measured, will rise and fall. Just peruse renowned investor’s Ray Dalio’s recent books, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail to discover the cyclical nature of economic abundance and poverty.

            After our most basic needs are met—thank you Maslow (air, water, food, shelter, sleep), our spiritual bank accounts require our attention.

            Only we humans possess an affinity to avoid pain and discomfort. We flee from hurt, instead of looking at it directly. We hide behind schedules or alcohol, or addiction to numb our pain.

            Avoiding the pain, denying what we are feeling creates two potential outcomes over time:

  1. Mountain-out-of-a-molehill behavior 
  2. Illness in the body and mind

Author and speaker, Brene Brown (Atlas of the Heart), refers to this tendency to be triggered over something seemingly insignificant as “chandeliering.” 

We see this triggered behavior all over the world and in our own backyards: 

-the “Karen” ready to attack someone for having a different opinion

-the road rage against a total stranger on the highway

-the friend who starts cursing up a storm when their iPad won’t charge

In all of these examples, the anger lashing out is not about what appears to be the source of their anger. The anger is a symptom of an inner pain that is going unaddressed.

The anger is misplaced, unexamined pain and a symptom of a depleted spiritual bank account.

Then there is the manifestation of pain in our body:

-the back pain that worsens in traffic

-the chest pain that “comes out of nowhere”

-the panic attacks 

-the frequent malaise

Brene Brown refers to our tendency to swallow our pain, pushing it down, so it can’t see the light of day as “stockpiling.” These are the folks who say everything is fine, like a spiritual Unikitty (Lego movie) when things are feeling far from fine.

If we are in denial like a super-charged positive Unikitty, ignoring our wounds, they will fester. And if we aren’t “chandeliering,” we are likely to “stockpile” our negative emotion until they show up in our bodies.

It’s human nature to avoid pain and seek pleasure. But there’s a real danger in denial, in running from our negative emotion or swallowing it and swimming like a duck through life—graceful on the surface but fighting for our lives below.

Unexamined and untended to pain that remains hidden will fester, affecting either others (when we lash out) or our own bodies negatively.

When we take time to look our wounds directly in the eye, something wonderful happens: the wound itself begins to heal.

Our spiritual bank accounts fill when we honor our journey and respect the emotions we experience along the way. Emotions, like the weather, change; it’s only when we deny their existence or demand that certain ones stay that our bank account falters.

What Wealth Feels Like

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Wealth is more a state of mind than a bank statement.

            I drove a Range Rover—the high end with all of the bells and whistles. I lived in a Mediterranean style “home” just shy of 6,000 square feet. I had a second home—a 3- bedroom condo off the water with a balcony. Financially, I wanted for nothing. My net worth put me in the top 5% of the world’s wealthiest.

            I was miserable.

            According to Merriam-Webster, the first two definitions of wealth pertain to abundance in value, resources, and supply.

            So why was I miserable?

Despite having the “value, resources, and supply” in fiscal abundance, I was living an impoverished life in other aspects. A friend recently referred to my life before as “a canary trapped in a gilded cage.”

The abundance of dollars in the bank is neither good nor bad. It is our relationship with our “value, resources, and supply,” that determines a genuine sense of wealth. After all, there are those with millions in the bank who use money to control and manipulate others or who hide behind the “stuff” that money can buy yet remain miserable.

I didn’t begin to experience wealth until I left my figurative gilded cage.  True wealth is not measured by dollar signs; true wealth is the feeling of ease and pleasure.

Think of the late billionaire, Jean Paul Getty (portrayed by the late Christopher Plummer in the film, All the Money in The World) whose 16-year-old grandson, John Paul Getty III was kidnapped and held for ransom. The wealthy grandfather refused to pay ransom to rescue his grandson, and in the end, the grandfather dies alone in a 72-room mansion, alone with his German shepherds.

Wealth is more a state of mind than a bank statement. 

Since I flew out of my figurative bird cage, my bank account looks very different. I paid a fiscal price for my spiritual wealth, and I would do it all over again.

Wealth is knowing time and choices are yours. 

Think about those days when, for whatever reason, you hadn’t eaten all day. Maybe you were stuck on a delayed flight; maybe it was a religious fast—regardless, how amazing did that first bite of food taste? The feeling, the sheer pleasure experienced in abundantly enjoying that morsel was an experience of wealth.

Regardless of the number in your bank account now, you always have the option to choose wealth, to experience a sense of abundance and ease.

Ease, freedom, fun—this is what we all want to experience.

I wish each of you dear readers, great wealth.

What They Don’t Tell You About Childbirth

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Doctors and well-meaning friends inform about the not-so-fun effects of childbirth, yet somehow leave this one out…

Postpartum depression. Weight gain. Tender breasts. There’s a whole gamut of physical and psychological changes a woman experiences upon giving birth. One area I see unrepresented: back issues.

A woman’s pelvic bones shift to prepare for the growing fetus. That alone is 9 months’ work of alignment changes! Ever wonder why women often experience urinary incontinence post childbirth? It’s often due to the misalignment of those pelvic bones during the perinatal period.

Pain is another effect of that pelvic misalignment; since our bodies are like a Rue Goldberg machine, an off-kilter pelvis can easily throw our spine out of whack. 

Growing up, I remember childbearing women complain about their swollen ankles (edema), larger shoe sizes, and even their hair falling out post birth. 

By the time I was pregnant with my first child, I thought I knew all there was to know about the underbelly of pregnancy and childbirth: everything from the fluctuating hormones to the fluctuating weight; the heartburn to the headaches; the breast tenderness to the clogged nipples.

I attended the birthing classes, took the requisite prenatal vitamins, and heeded my obstetrician’s advice.

But no one warned me of the bigger picture that was whispering to me each day from the start of my pregnancy: back pain.

“I have back pain,” I told my doctor. I was a few months into my first pregnancy.

“Yes, that’s to be expected.” He suggested going for walks and moving a tennis ball on my lower back.

Some days in the pregnancy, the back pain was so bad, I only found relief on all fours.

Our pain may start out as a whisper, but if you don’t heed its warning, it will only grow louder.

Fast forward, that oldest child is almost 19 years old today. The whispers that began when he was in utero are now loud and clear: an MRI revealed I have a herniated disc and 3 bone spurs.  The pain in my lower back had screamed loud enough for me to cancel a work meeting last minute, my back spasming like labor pains.

Immobile, I listened to what my body had been trying to tell me all along. The back had literally been tapping me to get some TLC for decades.

I want better for you.

Whether you are reading this as an expectant mom or someone suffering with the whispers of back pain, I share with you what I wish someone had told me: pregnancy alters our pelvic and spinal structure. If you are experiencing pain now that comes and goes, please don’t ignore it or push past it like I did. Your body is trying to help you NOW. The earlier you address the pain, the more mobility you will experience in the future.

A happy body is one that is heeded.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6799872/

The Space Between Life and Death

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Underneath the Busy-ness of Life is the silent awareness that we are only visiting planet Earth.

This past week, my mother went into the hospital for a minor procedure. Small. Common. Something that caused nothing more than a mental note to check up on her that afternoon to hear, what I had naively assumed, would be filled with verbal green lights and thumbs up.

There’s a famous quote from one of my favorite books, The Art of Racing in the Rain (author Garth Stein):

“People and their rituals. They cling to things so hard sometimes.”

Mom is 78. Deep down, I know any procedure—young or old—is risky. Deep down, are feelings too painful to ponder. So, when I wished her good luck on her procedure and assumed all was well, I clung to my work and the business of life. Work, chores, responsibilities—the Building Blocks of Busy-ness that help stave off thoughts often too daunting to face.

Seconds before her procedure began, my mother went into AFib: an abnormal heart rhythm which can cause a stroke or death.

While we waited for my mother to be stabilized, I spoke with my father. Normally, he is the King of Busy-ness—always in a great hurry to do something and get somewhere. He is also the King of Rituals. Whether it is how he likes to keep track of bills or how he plans his day, there is a long unwritten list of routines he “must” (a word he will often use) do. The rituals and busy-ness have altered through the decades, but the theme remains.

All that changed when his wife, my mother, went into atrial fibrillation.

Several years back, my parents were in a terrible car accident. My father walked away with nothing more than a few scratches. My mom was severely injured and is still in pain as a result of that car wreck, years later. 

My father was driving when the other car slammed into them.

Yet, it wasn’t until my mom’s life was in immediate danger that he shared sentiments with me never before expressed:

“Your mom’s in pain because of me. She saw that man coming at 90 miles an hour at us. I didn’t react in time. I see pictures of her from before the accident. She used to smile. I loved seeing her smile. But since the accident, she doesn’t smile anymore. It’s all my fault.”

If life were like a Pac-man video game, where three lives were guaranteed, would my father have expressed such raw emotions? My father’s voice overflowed with yearning to see his wife’s smile. Would such yearning be felt if he knew she would return from the hospital like she looked and felt before the car accident?

This fleeting time between life and death is a gift. It’s life’s brevity that makes each moment matter. Mortality is like caffeine for the soul—a wakeup call to make moments matter.

My father shared more while we waited to hear news from the doctor. 

“I keep looking at that picture of us outside all those years ago. Remember that one? You were about 6, your sisters 10 and 3. Oh, and your mom looked so happy. Those were the best days.”

I didn’t tell him what I was thinking. Yes, that snapshot captured a precious memory of our nuclear family in the backyard of our Long Island home. But it didn’t show my father filled with Busy-ness before and after the Kodak camera’s click.

Mom is back home and stable, a prescription of Beta blockers, the latest change in her life. I spoke with her today, and she sounded the happiest I’ve heard in a long time. And my father’s voice beamed through the phone and made me think of George Bailey at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life.

“I have my wife back,” he said.

   There’s a powerful line in Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library:

     “In the face of death, life seemed more attractive.”

      Here’s the truth: We are in the face of death (we just forget this or choose to forget this—thank you Busy-ness and Denial). Moments in this Earth School are precious because they are just that—moments. Each of us has a finite number of days on this planet to live!  Some of us know or can sense this (Just look at our American Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton and the late and great American Composer, Jonathan Larson). There’s an inner fire ignited when one is cognizant of their mortality.

     Consider the ecstasy felt upon eating food after fasting or sitting beside a fire after hours spent in the kind of cold that numbs your extremities. Or how about a petite mort—the French expression for an orgasm (translation: a little death). It’s living on the edge of things that make us feel so alive, that allows us to taste the juice of life with all of our senses.

https://www.medicinenet.com/atrial_fibrillation/article.htm

Did You Just Cancel Yourself?

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When we lack compassion for ourselves, we are dismissing and cancelling our very experience.

The 21st century has brought us a world of “cancel culture” where one wrong phrase or action could land you on a figurative island of ostracism. Cancel culture is “political correctness on steroids.” American culture has morphed from a gentle parent to mind one’s manners to a shame-inducing zealot of morality. And no one is immune from getting “cancelled.” Heck, as I’m writing this now, there’s a good chance that someone is silently seething in their seat from these words on their screen.

When did we get so sensitive? When did we go from speaking up to shaming? When did we go from making a mistake to paying for it for the rest of our lives?

There’s an old Twilight Zone episode that comes to mind: Rod Serling’s The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street. We often hear, “history repeats itself,” and the 1960’s sci-fi episode is proof of this aphorism. Without giving the episode away, the story involves neighbors in a “quiet, suburban town” who suddenly lose electricity, sans explanation. When one neighbor’s car starts on its own, the other neighbors begin “canceling” him. Before long, with other lights in the neighborhood going on and off sporadically, neighbors begin to turn on neighbors. The late and great Serling was using sci-fi as a vehicle to highlight the onslaught of fear of communism.

Fear itself is the all terrain great vehicle for cancel culture: the unspoken “what if” that is temporarily flattened when attacking another. It’s temporary because, again, the next person to be canceled could be you.

However, there’s another side of cancel culture that goes unaddressed: canceling ourselves. Rejecting what we think and how we feel. The other day, I spoke with a friend who was upset with something her fiancé did. 

“Do you think I have a right to be upset?”

Wow. It doesn’t matter what her fiancé did or didn’t do; what stood out to me was her unconscious decision to question her very emotion. She went on:

“I think I’m just going to stay quiet. Things are good between us. I don’t want to upset that.”

Double wow. Instead of allowing herself to feel the negative emotion—not bathe in it, mind you—just feel it, she shoved it down, away—no different than the way we cancel culture each other. There’s a famous quote by Rumi that comes to mind:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”

The field, I believe Rumi was referring to, is Compassion. When we have compassion for ourselves and others, we are able to make mistakes and learn from them. We are able to grow and forgive ourselves and others. We are able to see that we are all in this life together and canceling one of us is canceling all of us.

Source: Author D. Eric Schansberg https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2021/03/29/cancel-culture-america-political-correctness/6991235002/

The Bar Date or the Coffee Date?

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First date coffee or first date drinks? One of them is better than the other. The answer depends on where you are right now.

*Samantha and *Matthew are good friends. Both are divorced, though Samantha is 10 years post the end of a marriage and Matthew is in the embryo stages of life after divorce—a few months shy of a year. Friends since college, there is an ease between them that can only come from a combination of time and knowing each other in their formative years.

Since Matthew’s divorce, their friendship has morphed into an unspoken mini therapy group of two: sharing each other’s trials and tribulations in the dating world. Matthew wants to get laid; Samantha wants to experience a romantic relationship. Their different goals cause the other to shake their head.

“Why are you wasting your time on a coffee date?” Matthew asked.

“I want to get to know the person.” Samantha said.

“But you can’t make out with a person in a Starbucks.”

“I don’t want to make out with a total stranger. You do?”

“Uh, yes! That’s the whole point of meeting at a bar.”

Both have approached me separately, telling me how foolish they think the other person is. They are both right…and wrong.

Matthew is newly divorced and still licking his wounds from his ex’s desire to end the marriage. “I was happy,” he tells Samantha. Married for almost 19 years, the only roles that remain constant in his life are father and business consultant. Overnight, he’s gone from living in their family home to residing in a one-bedroom bachelor pad. 

“What are you looking for on all those dating sites?” Samantha’s asked.

“I don’t know. Nothing serious. I’m all messed up now. But I’m still a guy.”

So, Matthew meets women at bars. For now, this works—for him. He doesn’t want a relationship now; he wants to “make out” and wake up the next morning and drive his daughters to school. He wants physical intimacy without emotional intimacy; he wants easy sans—for now—self-reflection.

Samantha wants to get to know someone without alcohol coursing through her veins. She doesn’t want the commitment of a meal with a total stranger. She wants to pay attention to the person she meets without the distraction of loud music or the subterfuge that comes with a smoky, dark bar.

“Meeting at a bar just sets up a different set of expectations,” Samantha says.

“Exactly,” Matthew says.

                        Again, they are both right…and wrong.

                        Both Matthew and Samantha are dating the way that works best for each of them. They’re both honoring what they need. The issue between them is wanting the other to live through their lens; the dating diet that works for each of them is a prescription that works for them and them alone.

                        Matthew is hungry for physical intimacy; Samantha is hungry for emotional intimacy. Both have different ways of acquiring what they want. Both are good people figuring out what works best for each of them.

                        When it comes to dating, honor the journey you are on. Decide what kind of dating style works for you. There is no right or wrong when you heed your intuition. 

*Names have been altered to retain the privacy of individuals.

Click here for more dating advice.

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The Subtle Signs of Control

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There’s often an unconscious mindset, a spiritual sleepwalking involved in the unspoken agreement between the controller and the controlled.

*Dana started making jewelry as a hobby. But the designs she gave to family and friends were so well-received, they began asking Dana to sell her creations. Within a year, Dana’s hobby was a part-time successful business.

            Unfortunately, Dana’s husband didn’t like his wife’s success.

            “A hobby is one thing but now it’s taking away time from our family.”

            Dana stopped selling her jewelry.

            *Brian dreaded calling his mother each day. He knew her judgement and disappointment were waiting for him on the other end of the line, knew he would be insulted within five minutes of the call. 

            “If I don’t call her every day, she freaks out, says she’ll call the police if she doesn’t hear from me. It’s just easier to call her and get it over with.”

            While Dana and Brian are two different people and genders experiencing different relationships, both are people in a controlling relationship. Like the metaphorical story of the frog that’s slowly boiled to death, Dana and Brian are in hot water, living a spiritual death each day.

            Controlling relationships manifest in all forms: romantic, friendship, family, and professional. Like the allegorical frog that is put in a pot of water that, ever so slowly, gets warmer, we can often miss the early, subtle signs that we are about to experience a “slow death.”

            Whether you are wondering if you are in a controlling relationship or about to start one, there is always the opportunity to wax reflective and consider the following warning signs:

  • Do you often feel like you are walking on figurative eggshells with this person?
  • Do you find yourself second-guessing your feelings regarding things this person does or says?
  • Do you find yourself agreeing to “get along” (think of the “Ostrich in the sand” mentality) with this person?
  • Do you feel guilty for privately resenting this person?
  • Have you found yourself altering your lifestyle (i.e. your choice of clothes, diet, faith, friendships, career, politics, etc.) to “make peace” or “satiate” this person?

Dana stopped selling her jewelry to make her husband happy. But just like the frog who sits in water that gets warmer and warmer until its boiled alive, Dana’s decision to please her husband before herself is an ongoing theme in their marriage: like the frog that doesn’t notice the subtle increase in temperature, Dana slowly rationalizes that “it’s not a big deal” that she wears high heels because he wants her to, or cooks lamb for him when she is a vegetarian, or receives an “allowance” from him because he’s informed her that she just “doesn’t have a head for numbers.” While Dana is a physically alive woman, in many ways, she’s no different than that boiled frog.

            Brian’s consistent cortisol spikes around the need to please his mother, usurping his own needs for hers, has long term effects on his biochemistry. An adult man, Brian has the power to decide how often he calls his mother. He can get out of the boiling water any time. But like our metaphorical frog, the Appeasement Game has been in place for years, so he thinks he’s forever trapped in that pot.

            Getting out of the pot isn’t necessarily easy. In fact, getting out of that water will feel downright cold, if not plain frightening. But that is the price of freedom—a gift and right deserved for everyone.

*Names have been altered to retain the privacy of individuals.

Thank You, Matt Haig!

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Enter Haig’s Midnight Library: A world where you get to make different choices that affect the trajectory of your life.

There is nothing like living on the brink of World War III on the heels of a pandemic to cause one to wax reflective, if not, downright depressed. Take your pick of observations: the murder of George Floyd, the deaths of civilians, police officers, and a veteran both at and due to the January 6, 2021 capitol riots; as of the writing of this post, 115 children have died as a direct result of the Russia-Ukraine War. 

Since March 2020, whether we were masking up or hoping that our Amazon order didn’t get taken by porch pirates; whether we were worried we would never see Lysol Disinfectant wipes ever again or contact tracing with dread after learning a friend at a recent dinner party tested positive for Omicron, life on Earth has often felt like an apocalyptic Twilight Zone episode we can’t Rod Serling our way out of.

Enter the ingenious writer: Matt Haig and his new book, The Midnight Library. This is the kind of book that reminds us: even the most ordinary of lives has the ability to experience an extraordinary life. It’s the butterfly effect on steroids. No spoilers here, but Haig’s protagonist, painfully depressed in a way humanity can empathize with now, discovers the profound life changes brought about by the most minute of alterations. 

Again, no spoilers but Haig’s writing is food for the soul, nourishing our hearts with the poignant reminder that what we do matters. Like us, the protagonist and her family are fallible and contend with their own Achilles heels. Like life, this story pulls every emotion from our funny bone to our heartstrings. Haig is both therapist and entertainer with his words; through the insights of the main character, we understand ourselves more.

One of the quotes in Haig’s book is from the philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre:

“Life begins on the other side of despair.”

The Midnight Library has the potential to resuscitate the heart of the heartbroken. It is as complex as it is simple, like humanity itself. 

Mr. Haig, thank you for the invaluable reminder that regardless of what is occurring externally in our topsy-turvy world, each of us has the power to choose a different thought, word, or action; by extension, each of us has the power to create and experience delicious possibility. 

Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/russiaukraine-war-115-children-killed-140-injured-so-far-says-report-101647775243391.html

Source : https://www.americanscientist.org/article/understanding-the-butterfly-effect

Source : https://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Library-Novel-Matt-Haig/dp/0525559477/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ZLREKKEQC2OR&keywords=the+midnight+library&qid=1648005044&sprefix=the+midnight+library%2Caps%2C130&sr=8-1

Earning Vulnerability

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Excavating and exploring the painful parts of ourselves with self-compassion is needed before we offer our vulnerability to another.

It was a second date. The first one involved coffee and the kind of conversation typical of strangers: What kind of work do you do? Only child or one of many? Cat or dog lover? Do you prefer beaches or mountains? But *Mike, recently divorced with two girls under the age of 10, felt the questions lacking. He hadn’t wanted his twelve-year marriage to end yet felt lonelier in the marriage than on his own. He felt an urgency to get past the seemingly trivial “get to know you” questions and delve into “the stuff” of intimate relationships.

“I was low-hanging fruit. This was my first date out of the divorce gate.”

So, on this date, hungry for affection and connection, Mike didn’t waste any time on the second date. Before their appetizers arrived, he told her…well everything but the kitchen sink: his low testosterone level, the frequent verbal put downs he experienced from his ex in their marriage, his belief that his ex-wife treated their daughters like pawns to “get at him.” 

“I thought our date went well. I gave her a respectful kiss on the cheek and a hug. But she’s not returning any of my texts, and her phone goes right to voicemail when I call.”

Poor Mike. 

“I don’t understand. I thought women like it when a man is vulnerable. Did I scare her off? Am I supposed to act like some Alpha male? What do women want?”

There’s a famous quote by the late and great author, Dr. Wayne Dyer:

“You do not attract what you want. You attract what you are.”

Vulnerability has two sides: the willingness to look within and the willingness to be seen or known by another. Both involve risk. To look within, to possess the courage to self-reflect and look unflinchingly at our beliefs opens us up to potential emotional pain. Getting “real” with ourselves is no journey for the faint-hearted. 

Mike knows the surface facts of his recent past. He’s:

  • A recently divorced father of two young girls
  • He was married for 12 years.
  • The divorce was not mutual.

The remainder of his story is highly subjective and requires Mike to excavate the cracks in his (currently) unsteady foundation. For example: Was Mike’s ex abusive or is that a story Mike tells himself? If Mike’s wife was abusive, what brought him to experience an abusive relationship, and why was he against divorcing someone who abused him?

 Before Mike can experience vulnerability with another potential romantic partner, he needs to be vulnerable with himself. When we look under the figurative hood of our own life, when we are willing to see the parts of ourselves that aren’t so shiny, something changes from the inside out: we discover our self-worth, we remember that we matter and can distinguish between wanting a romantic partner and clinging to someone just to have a someone. When we explore the slings and arrows of our past with a willingness to see it in the broad daylight of self-reflection and compassion, we aren’t so quick to be vulnerable with others. After our soul’s journey into the wilderness of vulnerability (thank you, Brene Brown:-) our perspective has altered: a potential romantic partner needs to earn our vulnerability. Vulnerability is no longer a by-product of low self-esteem; vulnerability is now an invaluable gift to share with the right person on YOUR timeline.

   *Mike, in his desperation for affection and loneliness, attracted what he was: the absence of a potential partner and a greater sense of loneliness. This pattern of women leaving him is likely to continue, so long as he continues to perceive himself as “low-hanging fruit.” 

    Vulnerability is both a gift and a wound. When we are willing to go within and explore our wounds with an open and compassionate heart, we receive the greatest gift: self-love.

*Name has been altered to protect the privacy of the individual.

Are You Wearing Emotional Spanks?

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Donning an emotional “everything is fine” mask in our personal relationships is psychological Spanx, making it difficult for authentic connection to develop.

Spanks. Those ingenious undergarment items that smooth our bumps and bulges has helped many of us feel our best. But there’s an emotional kind of Spanx wearing that tends to occur in our personal relationships: the idea of hiding our authentic selves from a potential or actual partner in an effort to be liked.

It’s one thing to want the illusion of a slimmer physique but when we hold back who we truly are in our personal relationships, we are doing a disservice to ourselves, our partner, and the relationship itself.

*Gena just started dating someone.

“I really like this one. I think there’s real potential. But then I saw him on TikTok, throwing emoji kisses and hearts to another girl. Psychologically, I went down the rabbit hole. But I’m not letting him see that. He thinks I’m all cool with his online flirting emoji-fest.”

It’s a couple of weeks into Gena’s dating “Mr. Real Potential.” Two weeks of seeing his online TikTok flirting, two weeks of keeping her angst inside like a muffin top hidden under Spanx. And just like the physical Spanx, the emotional Lycra needed to eventually come off.

“I found myself getting passive-aggressive with him. I couldn’t take not knowing who these girls were that he was online emoji kissing. So, I asked him, ignoring my head screaming at me that I looked like an idiot.”

That inner voice is fear; it’s our brain’s meaning-well-attempt to protect us. But we aren’t in danger when we are honest. Ironically, removing our emotional Spanx is the best thing you can do for everyone involved. Your relationship can literally breathe better.

A dear friend of mine is a bit of a branding guru (https://www.catheynickell.com). She recently had a speaking engagement where she shared her most popular posts on Instagram:

“It’s typically the ones where I share something about me, something personal and authentic. People are drawn to authenticity.”

Authenticity not only boosts one’s potential popularity on social media; it nourishes our relationships. When we, as Brene Brown ingeniously coined it, “dare greatly,” we are showing up in this life, removing our psychological Spanx to experience genuine intimacy.

Shortly after Gena’s confession, her Mr. Real Potential shared that he appreciated her honesty and assured her that it was just playful texting and that he only dates one person at a time.

Could Gena have experienced Mr. Real Potential giving a different answer, one filled with negativity? Judgement? Disappointment? Anger? Absolutely. To “dare greatly” is to know there are risks and to do it anyway. The greater risk is to keep the emotional Spanx on and live a lie with yourself and your partner.

*Names have been altered to protect the privacy of individuals.