Do you ever hide the parts of yourself you think nobody wants to see? I know I do. How dare I start this post telling you to “Just be you” when I struggle to just be me!
Growing up in a family where intelligence is king, I tend to wear my intellect and big fancy words like a suit of armor to hide my insecurities. If you don’t feel good enough, just try to look smart enough! Right?
Ha! Here’s the problem I’ve run into with this. My goal is to have really great relationships with people. Relationships where I feel safe to be myself and to share my hopes, dreams, and silliness.
But when I hide my vulnerability behind big fancy words and academic stuff, I find that it creates a barrier between me and the people I would otherwise enjoy meeting and getting to know. I love to learn, and that will always be a priority of mine, but that doesn’t mean I have to parade around my vocabulary.
For people that don’t speak or write that way, it can be intimidating. It shuts down some amazing conversations I could have had. So every day I’m working to step out from behind the smarty pants persona and just be me.
It’s funny, because in medical school and the surgery world, you want to look impressive. Fake it til you make it. It’s seen as a sign of weakness to admit that you don’t know something or speak like a normal human being.
I learned to put my accomplishments first and pretend to be confident, even if I wasn’t. All praise the research studies you’ve published!
But that’s not who I want to be. I want to be someone who can talk with people without them having to scratch their head or silently nod without knowing what the hell I’m saying. That’s a one-sided conversation where nobody really wins.
It’s a bit scary to show up and just be yourself, but I’m finding that as I do it, I find more people I actually enjoy talking with. Yesterday when I was at Starbucks, I met a couple from Boise, ID whose daughter graduated from medical school and is in internal medicine residency in Ohio.
For the first time, I was casually honest with these strangers about my PTSD from surgery residency and how I was just working on figuring out life. I didn’t make fun of myself, I didn’t try to make myself look better than I was. I just shared my truth with them.
And we had a great conversation! They thought it was great that I am working on spreading the knowledge I have about emotional health and learning to love yourself. The wife got a kick out of me buying a bus, and told me I should finish it, even if it takes me five more years.
We grow up in a society that tells us to be afraid of being ourselves. Most of the advertising world is about making you feel like you’re not enough and then trying to sell you something to fill that void. But it’s a bunch of bullshit.
There’s enough space for everybody. It doesn’t matter what kink you’re into, what you like to nerd out about, or what flavor of mental illness you struggle with– there’s room for everyone. The more you embrace who you are and show up in the world without hiding, you will find the people you enjoy being around.
Just be you, boo. The rest will fall into place. I believe that now, even though I will probably forget it at least 100 times in the next month. But that’s ok too.
