Insides = Outsides


Who you are on the inside must match who you are on the outside. Often they simply don’t match. Often you are feeling one way and acting another. Often you are taught that you must be a certain way to be acceptable, to be fun, to be ok. So you act that way. But it doesn’t resonate with your insides. You are forcing a situation – whether that is to be louder or quieter. Most of us are always thinking about what we should be, rather than just being who we are.

When your insides don’t match your outside, you will feel confused and you will feel depressed. Most of us don’t get there overnight and so we can’t correct it quickly. If you find yourself in a situation with a deep hopelessness or a deep sadness that you cannot explain, maybe explore the idea that your insides don’t match your outside.

I remember many years ago, when I was a very young adult, I found myself in a closet crying. I was so unbelievably sad and I was hiding in the closet to cry. I knew that being so sad wasn’t ok, and I didn’t know why I was so sad. I didn’t know what to do about it because I didn’t know the cause. I remember that I had just gone on antidepressants, which I am not opposed to doing, and I was desperate for them to work. But yet I was in the closet crying. Suddenly I knew that I had to make my insides and my outside match each other. Suddenly I knew that if my insides and my outside didn’t match, I could not be happy. At that moment I knew that I needed to live with integrity. Now I wish I could say that I was magically happy after that, but I wasn’t. It did help though. I did call myself out on acting in ways that didn’t mesh with who I was. When I found myself gossiping and talking about people (outside), I stopped myself because inside I knew that was wrong. When I found myself going along with racist and hateful comments (outside), I knew that I had to change my behavior and stand up for what I knew to be true and right so that my insides (loving people) would match my outside.

There are many examples of how I had to shift this over the years. I like to think that I have largely done this, but I still have to sometimes remind myself to do it. There are days when I am not productive at work – maybe I’ve gotten distracted by social media or email or my family or other household responsibilities. On those days when I am not focused, I start to feel the gnawing of depression. Even though, my world is telling me that I should try to shirk my duties (outside), my inner self knows that I want to do what’s right. That I want to focus and do a good job. When I shift my actions to match what I know inside, I start to feel better.

There are times when I am avoiding conflict or times when I am putting off paying a bill or postponing a difficult conversation. I used to feel only the discontent of those times and I used to call it depression without even realizing how much more there was to it. I still start to slip and sometimes I fall pretty far, but then I stop and catch myself and realize what it is that is out of alignment, where my insides aren’t matching my outside, my actions. A lot of the time I don’t want to correct it, but I do.

I remember reading one time that when you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice. Our goal as people should be to be like oranges. Who we are on the inside should always be representative of who we are on the outside.

As a meteorologist, I know that wind is caused by pressure differentials. My daughter has had a fear of wind since a fairly young age, and we were recently discussing this fear and it occurred to me that knowing the science behind the wind might help dispel her fear. I started talking to her about how everything wants to be in equilibrium. Water behind a dam will naturally rush toward the lower water levels when the dam breaks to reach equilibrium. The same is true for air – high pressure systems and low pressure systems form the basis of our earth’s atmospheric system, but the atmosphere will always try to even itself out. That is why we have wind.

We as people are no different. We as people also need to reach equilibrium. And when our insides and outside don’t match, our system will create the “wind” it needs to create to get us back into equilibrium. Sometimes we call this wind depression or sadness. Sometimes we call this wind irritability. But when we notice the wind, we can start looking for the differential that is creating this equilibrium-seeking reaction. We can find another way to set things straight – to help our outside, or actions, equal our insides. I strongly suggest journaling about what is going on on the outside, what you are doing that is not in alignment with your core beliefs. Give it a try. And then have patience with yourself. Noticing is the first step. Understanding the wind will gradually over time resolve the fear of it.


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