Outside vs Inside

I met a very successful surgeon on one of my flights. He was tall, very good-looking, happily married with 3 kids he loved and who loved him. In college he was the star quarterback, he had his home in the city and another in ski country. He had everything. He was the epitome of 'success' … and had been for some time.

I don't remember how we got into it, but it wasn't long before he shared about not feeling fulfilled. There was something missing in his life, and he didn't know what it was. I did an impromptu variation of the More To Life program's Esteem Generator, and out it all poured. On the inside, he kept trying to disprove that he was unimportant, not worth loving, invisible to those he loved … especially his dad. No matter what he accomplished, it was never enough to get his dad's approval.

All his effort and struggle to be good enough to be noticed and approved was, in essence, the very thing that kept him from seeing that his father did approve of him … in his father's way.  Which was not the way he wanted his father to approve of him. He kept doing his very best to get what was being given, and which he discounted, because it wasn't a way he understood.

I recognized my own story as he told his.

Isn't that the way it is? People outside us see the version of ourselves that we've managed to perfect over the years. Inside our own skins are hidden our self-doubt (or our self-righteousness). The part I like best is when those dirty little self-doubts (or false positives) are examined in the light of day, they are always washed clean by telling the Truth … and something whole settles in place.