Fifteen years ago, I was right at the start of what I call my learning journey, though at the time it just felt like falling apart a little, or a lot, depending on the day.
My father-in-law’s wife couldn’t understand it. She’d look at my life, the marriage, the family, my job and my work, and genuinely could not figure out why I was struggling. She said as much, more than once, in that tone that sounds like concern but lands like a verdict.
I remember sitting with that comment afterward, turning it over. Not because she was someone whose opinion I deeply trusted. But because some part of me agreed with her math. I did have all those things. So her question became my question.
What is wrong with me for feeling this way?
Here’s what I know now that I didn’t then. That question was never really about me having something “wrong.” It was about a gap between what people could see and what I was carrying, and nobody had ever handed me language for that gap. So I filled it in myself, with the worst possible explanation: something must be wrong with me.
It wasn’t the having that was the problem. It was the holding without letting on.
I said I was fine. I kept moving. Even then, I didn’t talk about the “hard” stuff. People around me noticed that I wasn’t quite myself, but they didn’t know why. You can’t ask about something you don’t know is there.
If you’ve ever heard some version of “you have it all” and felt a strange little flinch, a wince, instead of pride, I don’t think that flinch means anything is wrong with you. I think it means you’ve been holding something the way I was, without letting on.
You don’t need someone else’s math to explain your own life back to you.
If this is landing for you, I’ve opened a few spots for a free call where we look at exactly this: the gap between how your life looks and how it feels. No fixing, no diagnosing, just a real look at what’s underneath. You can find it here: https://www.lifelessonswithlinda.net/whenyourecapable4774