I paid $20 for integrity

“Why are you expecting other people to hold your integrity for you? Their job isn’t to back up who you say you are, that’s your job.”

Mic drop in the therapy office at 10am on a Saturday.

It was one of those rabbit trails in therapy that turns out to be the exact point we needed to touch on, only instead of attacking head on what I thought the problem was, we held up the emotion and examined it from all angles.

One thing about me is while I’m a very deep person, I also am a chameleon. You need something? I got it. Not my strongest skillset? I’m a fast learner. I will shape shift and make myself into whoever you want me to be, I’ve been doing it my entire life. And this does make me a really good people person. I have an uncanny ability to make people feel seen and heard in conversation. (And as I’m uncovering in therapy this isn’t the trauma that made me this way. I may have been in situations that brought it out differently, but I am inherently a relational person.)

The problem with my chameleon nature (and I know this about myself) is I have a tendency to fall into this pattern of I’ll show up like this so you’ll mirror me. I love supporting the people I care about and helping and making people feel special. Love it. And when other people don’t meet me in my depth, I can find myself a little bitter. It’s not their fault (which I was in the trap of believing it was.) They just aren’t me, so I can’t expect them to meet me the way I meet them.

But also me acting a certain way to get a response was me acting out of integrity with myself. I wasn’t doing it because I’m a relational human and I love it and I genuinely want to support people. Me being authentic and in integrity with myself was never theirs to hold. I abandoned myself when I was waiting for them to pick me. Why weren’t they showing up for me is actually why am I not showing up for me?

Let’s look at this another way: you may have noticed some changes around this digital space. Namely my name. After years of branding myself one way, I changed it.

I was having a chat with a friend a while ago and she asked me a seemingly innocent question about which variation of my name I wanted used on my bio for an event we were both speaking at. And I paused. I’ve used so many variations of my name over the years, and none of them were bad or wrong. When I developed my internet persona, it was because it made me brave. Think of it like a pen name. I named myself after a drag queen (that’s a story for another time) because I wanted her confidence, her charisma.

And I’m not that version of me anymore. But still, I sat here calling myself that because I felt like I had to, and people expected me to show up a certain way, and I’d started building my brand under it and…

When did I start thinking it was ok to act out of integrity with my own self?

When did I decide other people’s (real or not) expectations of me mattered more than how I felt about myself?

When did I stop letting myself change? Thinking this is it, I’ve reached the limit.

I paid $20 for integrity within myself. (I actually paid for a new domain, but it felt the same.)

After years of healing and figuring out who I am, I have the capacity to hold and embody integrity. (integrity, like creativity, like authenticity, is metabolically expensive).

Me being in integrity and alignment with me is an inside job. It isn’t the job of any other person to believe in me, support my dreams, hold me to be who I say I am. I have to have the energy to sustain change, I have to be who I say I am, I have to believe in my dreams. It starts with me.

Eyes on your own paper, babe.

It was never about them. It was always about me. I can’t sit and expect someone else to get behind me and uplift me when I’m not even on the same page as myself.

What would it look like to make decisions from a place of integrity? To be a person of integrity, to know your values and live in a way that is an honest reflection of that?

There’s a difference between being the fullest, best, most vibrant version of myself and imitating what worked for someone else. I’ve got to stay in connection with my magic.

So yeah, I changed my domain (and pretty much my entire social presence.) Not because it was wrong, but because it was what I needed to do to be a woman of integrity and stay connected to who I’m created to be and what I’m here on this earth to do.

$20 well spent.