20/05/2025
“Not everyone will clap when you choose yourself.
There's a quiet ache inside us all. The ache to be seen, understood, applauded. We chase this in our parents' eyes, our lovers' arms, the applause of strangers.
As long as you perform the role that they recognize and approve, you'll be loved. But the moment you step off script, the audience gets uncomfortable.
Choosing yourself isn't a celebration. It's a funeral for the masks you wore, roles you played, self you betrayed to be approved.
When you stop editing yourself to fit their idea of you, you'll feel it all. The shame. The silence. The distance. The rejection disguised as concern.
You'll be called cold. Selfish. Arrogant. Ungrateful. Because people mistake boundaries for betrayal.
But no one sees that you didn't feel you in that version of you. You looked in the mirror and couldn't recognize yourself. Not because the mirror was broken, but because your soul was fractured.
The cost of abandoning yourself is not just emotional. It's physical, too. It's the migraines. The chronic fatigue. The anxiety that won't go away. The insomnia that keeps screaming, 'You're not living your truth.'
And when you finally choose you, not the persona, not the mask, it will be lonely. But it will also be holy. A rebellion that begins in your heart, your nervous system, and rewires your entire life.
Most people love the version of you that doesn't threaten their illusions.
When you change, they grieve their comfort, not your transformation.
So let them call you difficult. Let them misunderstand you. If they wish to leave, help them pack.
You're not here to keep pleasing others and keep suffering silently within.
The real work begins when you show up for the child inside who was trained to perform. Artist inside who stopped creating. Life force inside who's tired of staying stagnant.
It gets tough for a while. This rough path needs you to trust an unseen force. Call it god, the universe, the unknown, your higher self, your inner muse.
This trust will help you cross the bridge.
Here's what will help further: Create your outlets. Write. Dance. Paint. Speak what terrifies you. And soon, your audience will change, your peope will find you. But only, if you show up first.
You're being called back to the wild, to the real, to the you that knows your story.” /Chandresh Bhardwaj
🧜♂️/🎨: Allan Lou
📸: Freediving Coron Training Center
🌴: Black Island, Palawan
