The Fake Continuum

I’ve been a seeker for as long as I can remember. I can’t say I actually liked going to church, but there was always something about the energy of it all—the belief in something bigger, wiser, and stronger than all of us, holding us together, orchestrating this seemingly chaotic thing we call life.

I quickly outgrew my Catholic beliefs, which led me to explore Wicca and the paranormal throughout high school and college. That exploration eventually transitioned into meditation and various flavors of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism as I moved through my twenties—all the way up to now, turning 50 in the grand month of June. Looking back, I can see that my seeking was mostly, if not entirely, about finding comfort, reassurance, and some sense of guidance. I’ve struggled with a deep, almost instinctive sense of being flawed—somehow less worthy than others—paired with the feeling that somewhere out there, someone knew something I didn’t. If only I could find that person, read the right book, twist myself into the perfect yoga pose, do enough Ayurvedic cleanses, meditate for countless hours a day (the list really does go on), then I’d finally find the answers to what I should be doing with my life. I thought that would land me in a place of deep peace and contentment.

No one will be surprised to hear that all that striving, searching, and seeking—though fulfilling in its own way, and filled with interesting and sometimes truly insightful experiences—didn’t answer the questions I was so desperate to resolve. I started to feel like a failure. I started to wonder if maybe life is just one big masochistic joke and that, like the frequently misquoted saying attributed to the Buddha, maybe life really is suffering. That was a wildly depressing thought to land on, but I knew I couldn’t stop there. The truth couldn’t possibly be suffering. The core of all existence—whether you call it God, Goddess, Great Spirit, Allah, or any of the countless names for the Divine—just couldn’t be rooted in suffering. It made no sense to me.

So, I went back to seeking. I went back to therapy. Along the way, I came across a book called Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing by Jed McKenna, and one of his points struck me. To paraphrase: If you want to know the truth, stop being fake. If you sincerely want to find out whether there’s a capital “T” Truth out there, why don’t you, yourself, stop doing anything that doesn’t feel true?

At first, I thought that was a quaint idea—like a fun little experiment I was curious to try. But then I actually started to do it, and I couldn’t believe what I discovered about myself.

Pretty much everything I do—and have ever done—has been somewhere on the fake continuum. Other than loving pesto, hiking, and tiramisu, I’m not entirely sure what else is truly real or authentic in my life. The layers of social and familial conditioning began to reveal themselves, painfully clearly. I call my mom out of obligation, not out of an earnest desire to talk to her. I spend time with that friend because I want to look like the kind of person who prioritizes her friendships, when in reality, I think getting to bed early with a book would serve me better. I work out so much because I’ve been taught that my looks are directly tied to my worth, that I need to be attractive to men, and that I should be fighting the one thing I have absolutely no control over: the dreaded condition of aging.

I wake up early because I was told, over and over again, “The early bird gets the worm,” and somewhere along the line I swallowed the message that being a morning person is inherently better than being a night owl. I make small talk even when I’d rather admit I’m feeling socially anxious and don’t quite know what to say.

I hope you’re catching my drift here. It’s a bit cliché, I know, but as I approach 50, I’m realizing that I’m not sure who I actually am. I’m not sure how much of these past fifty years have been an authentic expression of my being—or just a series of contorted responses to conditioning and trauma. And oh, the trauma!

No need to get into details here; there isn’t a single person, sentient being, or living thing that hasn’t experienced some level of trauma. Trauma is trauma—no need to compare war stories. But I’m starting to realize on a deeper level what it actually means to heal from trauma. This is still my working theory (so don’t hold me to these exact words yet), but it seems to me—thanks to a deeply insightful conversation with friends yesterday—that healing means the past no longer dictates how you think, feel, or act in the present. That the trauma becomes something that happened but no longer controls the present moment.

I know that’s not a new idea, but I’m seeing it so much more clearly now. Unless we unpack trauma as close to when it happens as possible, it invades almost every breath we take. It’s incredibly hard to be truly present when the impact of trauma is still driving the bus and holding the map.

I would have sworn to you that after thirty years—eighteen of which I’ve spent in and out of therapy—my brother’s death by suicide no longer impacted me. I would have said that I was fully grieved and whole again after a long and winding road of bereavement. Admittedly, I have come a tremendously long way from the cloud of sorrow that hung over me for years. The therapy, journaling, sound baths, night hikes, homeopathic remedies, and all that seeking did help move the needle on my despair and got me back into the land of the living. But full-fledged healing? The root of the despair was still there. I had just learned how to look good and function better despite it. His death still propelled me into actions that weren’t authentic—because deep down, I felt it was my duty to save someone, to make sure every sad person I met felt loved and listened to, to ensure that my niece, the goddaughter we shared, felt extra, extra loved to compensate for the fact that her godfather chose to leave this world before she turned two.

That wound is still with me in every breath I take and in most of my actions. I’ve been recovering all these years, but I am not yet healed. As I enter my next decade, I want to know—really know—what fully healed looks and feels like. My guess is that it doesn’t involve nearly as many modalities as I’ve leaned on in the past. I think fully healed might look a lot more like a whole lot of nothing—a deep slowing down to truly see and feel what has been underneath all that seeking all these years.

I was too busy, almost frantic at times, chasing answers that I never stood still long enough to tap into what was already here and ask myself, “Is this true?” And if it isn’t, why am I doing it, saying it, participating in it?

There’s a quote by spiritual teacher Matt Kahn that has stuck with me: “A ‘yes’ is always a yes. A ‘maybe’ is always a no.” I think I’m going to pair that with Jed McKenna’s challenge to stop anything fake and see what unfolds as I begin my fiftieth circle around the sun.

I share this not as advice or as a prescription for anyone else’s journey, but out of genuine curiosity—my own and maybe yours too. At Love U, we truly honor and deeply respect our clients, colleagues, friends, and family. It’s out of that respect that I offer you the most honest words I can write, hoping that they might land or resonate with some of you. Maybe they’ll even inspire you to reach out and start a conversation if any of this sparks your interest.

Thank you for reading. Wishing you a bright and joyful Summer Solstice.

♥️ Maggie Mae