Three Words That Cracked Open Decades of Lies

My eyes darted back and forth, following the movement of her hand.

“Notice what is coming up,” my therapist said.

My hands clenched, my face scrunched, and my head shook in defiance. I resisted the words forming in my mind, that if uttered out loud would destroy decades of a belief that I was unlovable.

“It’s okay. Take your time. Just keep noticing,” she assured me, still steadily moving her hand.

I let my eyes fall shut and I began breathing with intention. Slowly over minutes my body started to ease its tension.

The words lingered in my consciousness, building into a palpable energy that moved through my body. It touched into the dusty and dark places of my heart and soul. Daring to shed light on the painful memories I kept locked away. The sneers from my peers growing up. The look of disgust on their faces, their actions and words that reinforced my perception of being unlovable and untouchable–a nothing.

“I…I,” I stopped to swallow in an attempt to keep the words from escaping.

The more I resisted, the harder the moment pushed back. The pressure on the back of my eyes overwhelmed and the tears dropped into puddles on my shirt.

Squeezing my eyes, I tried again.

“I…I.” Failure and a shirt more soaked.

My mind split into two. One side desperately holding onto the past and the other longing to move forward, leaving the old beliefs behind.

I took one more long, deep breath.

“I…I..love..myself.” I uttered through clouded vision and disbelief.

“I love myself.” I repeated as the energy of those words began to buzz around my body and expand outbound to fill the therapist’s office.

My head dropped and my rib cage collapsed. The couch caught my fall. Silence fell in the room where the only noise audible were my sobs of hope. I opened my eyes and saw my therapist smiling with tears in her eyes.

“I’m so proud of you,” she said.

It was the first time I told myself I was loved and the first time I actually believed it. Years of work led to three words. Three words that cracked open decades of lies.

But this was not the summit. This was base camp.

This was day zero.

I got up from the couch and walked toward the door. The road ahead was long. A lifetime, probably. But for the first time, I wanted to walk it.

Being a work in progress isn’t the character flaw. Pretending you’re finished is.

The Myth of “Fixed”

I used to believe there was a finish line.

A moment where the work would be done, the wounds fully healed, the old patterns finally dead. I imagined waking up one day and feeling whole. Complete. Fixed.

Finally worthy of good.

Ariana was dying. She laid lifeless on our bed. I climbed in, next to her, and held her hand.

“I want you to know that I finally see that I am worthy of love. This whole time, I thought people only loved me because of you. But I was wrong.” I whispered.

“Fixed” is mechanical.

You fix a car.

You fix a leaky faucet.

You fix things that were built to spec and stopped functioning along the way.

But humans aren’t built to spec. We’re born unfinished.

And that’s not failure.

That’s the design.

If you’re exhausted from wondering why you’re not further along by now, I get it. The world sold you a timeline that doesn’t exist.

Healing isn’t a destination you arrive at. It’s a direction you keep walking.

Why We Pretend to Be Finished

So why do we fake it?

Why do we smile and say “I’m good” when we’re drowning? Why do we perform “healed” for an audience that never asked for the show?

For years I hid my grief, subconsciously signaled to do so by the interactions I had. The pain I felt was to be hidden, keep away in secret while I performed “fine” to avoid making those around me uncomfortable.

We pretend because admitting we’re still in process feels dangerous. Like we’ll lose credibility. Like people will stop trusting us. Like they’ll see us as weak, unstable, too much.

We pretend because staying “in progress” means staying vulnerable. And vulnerability feels like a target on your back. So we go to war with ourselves instead.

But pretending to be finished is the weakness. It takes more energy to hold up the mask than to set it down. And the people worth keeping around? They see through it anyway.

Vulnerability isn’t the risk. Pretending is.

What “Work in Progress” Actually Looks Like

We’ve been lied to.

Transformation isn’t one dramatic breakthrough on a therapist’s couch. It’s not a single conversation that changes everything. It’s not a montage with inspirational music.

It’s small. Quiet. Repetitive. Boring, even.

The heads on my screen were all smiling. Each one more excited to share and listen. I sat in disbelief that I was a part of this group of friends. The thoughts crept in–*you don’t belong here and you have no value. *****

I didn’t deny the thoughts. I listened and heard them. Then I smiled and focused on the warmth and joy I felt seeing the faces of humans I love so deeply. The thoughts moved to a low background noise as gratitude for the moment overtook my mind.

That’s it. That’s the work.

Not a before and after. Not a straight line from broken to whole. Just noticing faster. Recovering quicker. Choosing again.

Some days you’ll catch the old story mid-sentence and redirect. Other days it’ll run the whole script before you realize what happened. Both count. Both are progress.

The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is awareness. And awareness doesn’t arrive once. It arrives over and over, every time you choose to pay attention.

The Permission You’re Looking For

If you’re reading this thinking you should be further along by now, let me be clear:

You’re not behind.

You’re not broken.

You’re building.

The shame you’re carrying about not being “over it” yet? That’s not evidence of failure. That’s evidence you’re still in the arena, still doing the work, still showing up for yourself even when it’s hard.

The fear that you’ll never fully heal assumes “fully healed” is a real place. It’s not. There’s only today. And today you’re here, reading this, still trying.

That’s enough.

The work isn’t an interruption of your life. The work IS your life.

The noticing, the choosing, the falling down and getting back up. That’s not the prologue to the real story. That IS the story.

You don’t need permission to be unfinished. But if you’re looking for it, here it is:

You are allowed to be in process for as long as it takes.

Day Zero, Every Day

I still think about that couch.

The moment I said the words I couldn’t say. The collapse. The silence. The therapist’s tears.

I walked out of that office thinking I had arrived somewhere. And I had. But not where I thought.

I didn’t arrive at “healed.” I arrived at willing.

Willing to keep walking. Willing to stay unfinished. Willing to be a work in progress for the rest of my life.

That was years ago. I’ve had a thousand day zeros since. Moments where I cracked open another lie, shed another layer, chose a different path. Each one felt like arriving. Each one was just another beginning.

The road is still long. A lifetime.

But I’m still walking it. Not because I’ll reach the end. Because the walking is the point.

You don’t become whole by finishing. You become whole by actually starting and refusing to stop.

- CJ

P.S. If you’re ready to do the deeper work of rebuilding who you are after loss, You take my free course, Identity After Grief: The 8-Day Rebuild. It’s for grievers who are done pretending and ready to do the hard, slow, beautiful work of becoming.

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What is the sentence you are too afraid to say out loud?

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