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Light In The Dark: The Story You Never Said Out Loud · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

• 0:00
  Hey, it's Sarah. I'm really glad that you came
• 0:03
  back. So as always, think of my voice
• 0:06
  as a light in the dark tonight. And I'm not here to fix
• 0:09
  anything. I'm not here to explain.
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  I'm just here to sit with you for a few minutes and whatever
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  it is you're carrying. And I want to talk tonight about
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  something that most people never say out loud.
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  Not because it isn't real, because saying it out loud feels
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  like it might confirm it. It's the story that lives in the
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  basement, the one that's been there longer than most of your
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  relationships, longer than most of your achievements, longer
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  than the version of yourself you show the world.
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  It's the one that says so quietly and consistently,
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  running in the background of almost everything.
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  There is something wrong with me.
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  And if that landed, if something in you just went very still,
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  you're exactly who I'm here with tonight.
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  You have built an extraordinary life on top of that story.
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  I want you to know that I see that the competence, the showing
• 1:02
  up, the way you hold things together for yourself, for the
• 1:05
  people around you, with the consistency that most people
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  can't maintain. And you have done remarkable
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  things, carrying a weight that nobody else could see.
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  And none of it has quieted the voice.
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  That's the part nobody warns you about.
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  You think if I just accomplish enough, build enough, prove
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  enough, the voice will have to admit it was wrong.
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  But it doesn't work that way. The voice doesn't respond to
• 1:31
  evidence. It just moves the goal post.
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  And it finds the next thing that isn't finished yet, or the next
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  place you fell short, or the next angle from which you can be
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  found insufficient. And you are so tired of running
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  that race. I know you are.
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  I can feel it. The exhaustion you're carrying
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  isn't from doing too much, it's from trying to outrun a story
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  that started before you were old enough to question whether it
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  was true. So can I tell you what I think
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  it actually feels like to live with this?
• 2:04
  I think it feels like performing in a play where you wrote the
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  script and you know every line and you've been doing it for
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  years, and you are still every single night waiting for the
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  moment someone in the audience stands up and says, I see what
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  you're doing. I know what's underneath.
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  And I think it feels like being unable to just receive something
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  good, a compliment, an acknowledgement, a moment where
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  someone chooses you clearly and instead of landing in it,
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  something in you immediately starts looking for why it
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  doesn't quite count. Why it's temporary, why it's
• 2:40
  based on the version of you they can see and not the one you're
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  certain would change things if they could.
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  And I think it feels like a really specific kind of
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  loneliness, and not the loneliness of being unseen, the
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  loneliness of actually being seen and still not being able to
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  feel it. Because the part of you that
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  could receive it is behind the story, and the story gets there
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  first every damn time. It's such an incredibly lonely
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  way to move through a life, to be surrounded by people who are
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  trying to reach you and not able to let them land.
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  Not because you don't want them to, because the story keeps
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  intercepting the signal. So here's what I want you to
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  hear tonight. That story, the one in the
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  basement, the one that says there is something fundamentally
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  wrong with you, was not something you arrived at on your
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  own. It was handed to you in a very
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  early, wordless way that the most important things get handed
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  to children not through what was said, but through what was
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  withheld. Through the moments when you
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  brought your full self into the room and something in the
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  environment responded in a way that taught you that part, that
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  one right there. Keep that part out of sight.
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  You were not defective. You were a child trying to make
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  sense in a world that wasn't always able to make room for all
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  of you, and the only explanation available to a child is the
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  problem must be me. It wasn't you.
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  It was never you. The people who couldn't hold all
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  of you were limited in their capacity.
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  That is real and it matters, and it is not the same thing as a
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  verdict on your worth. Their limits were not your
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  defect. They were just limits.
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  Human, ordinary, unexamined limits that got mistaken for a
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  measurement of you. And you've been living inside
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  that mistaken measurement for a very long time.
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  You are not someone with a defect you've been successfully
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  hiding. You are someone who was handed a
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  story about themselves before they were old enough to Fact
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  Check it. And I'm not going to tell you
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  tonight that the story is gone. And I'm not going to tell you
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  that naming it dissolves it. It doesn't work that fast.
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  The story is old and it moves quickly, and it will probably
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  show up again tomorrow in some form that you might recognize.
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  But I want to offer you something small tonight.
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  The fact that the story has been there a long time does not make
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  it true. Age is not evidence.
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  Persistence is not proof. Something can be old and
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  familiar and feel completely real and still be a story, still
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  be something that was handed to you rather than something you
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  discovered now. You don't have to dismantle it
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  tonight, and you don't have to have a different relationship
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  with it by morning. You just have to be willing to
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  sit here and let it be a story. Not the truth, not a verdict,
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  not a permanent feature of what and who you are.
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  Just a story. One that was written for you by
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  people who were doing the best they could and still got
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  something very important wrong. You are allowed to write a
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  different one, so I'm going to leave the Lantern right here
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  next to you and you don't have to figure anything out tonight.
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  Just sit and know that you are not alone and try to get some
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  rest.