We Learned to Fit In (and Forgot Ourselves)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how many of our beliefs were absorbed without our consent. Beliefs about worth, and love, and what’s possible, and how much space we’re allowed to take up in the world (and a host of other things). 

Somewhere along the way, most of us were gently, and sometimes not so gently, taught who to be. Be quieter, tougher, easier to love, smaller, and stop asking so many damn questions. The world has a funny way of handing us a script and calling it “maturity,” or “fitting in.” And for a long time, many of us follow it without question, assuming this is simply what becoming an adult looks like. 

But what if so much of what we’ve accepted isn’t who we are at all?

What if it’s just who we were conditioned to be?

I’ve also been noticing more of those people who seem to have ‘that way about them.’  You know the ones. They walk into a room, and the energy lifts. They laugh easily. Life seems to meet them halfway, not because everything is perfect in their lives, but because they’re aligned with who they truly are. Meanwhile, the rest of us are Googling, “Why am I like this?” at 3:00 AM.

Their lives often overflow with fulfillment, joy, opportunity, and ease. And more often than not, when you really look closely, it’s because they’ve returned to who they were before the world told them who to be. They’ve shed the layers. They’ve questioned the stories. They’ve released the “shoulds.”

Lately, I’ve had a front-row seat to this kind of unfolding. I’ve been working alongside my Godson, Nicholaus, as he builds his Human Design business—and what’s been most powerful isn’t the business itself (though I’m wildly proud of him). It’s the personal transformation happening for him in real time.

Human Design, at its core, invites you to understand how you’re uniquely wired, how your energy works, how decisions are meant to flow for you, and how you’re designed to move through the world with less resistance and more authenticity.

Think about it like living less like a shopping cart with a crooked wheel, and more like gliding down the aisle as one of those fancy carts that actually works.

What I’ve watched in Nicholaus goes far beyond charts and profiles, though.

I’ve watched him question beliefs he didn’t even realize he was carrying.
I’ve watched him soften where he used to armor up.
I’ve watched confidence replace doubt (not the loud kind, but the rooted kind).

And as he’s done the inner work himself, I’ve seen it ripple outward into how he shows up, leads, dreams, serves others, and most of all, how he navigates the precious family he and his wife, Rachel, have created. It’s been nothing short of beautiful.

Because when you begin to release what was never truly yours to carry, something remarkable happens. Your life begins to expand—not through hustle or force—through alignment. Which is refreshing, because most of us are tired and would prefer not to wrestle life into submission anymore.

Today, what keeps circling in my mind is this:

How many of the limits in our lives aren’t real, but are just inherited?

We accepted ideas about money, relationships, success, body image, men and women, creativity, faith, sex, and failure—often before we were old enough to fully understand any of these things. And then, we built our lives inside those invisible fences.

No wonder so many of us feel restless, like something’s missing. We’re exhausted trying to be versions of ourselves that were never natural to begin with.

I don’t believe those for whom “life just flows” are lucky. I believe they’re aligned with the truth of who they came into the world to be. Every time you question a limiting belief or choose what feels true instead of what feels expected, you come home to yourself.

Watching Nicholaus step into who he truly is and teach others the same has been a powerful reminder for me.

We are not meant to live confined by stories we never consciously chose. We are meant to flourish as who we were created to be.

So this week, let’s gently ask ourselves:

What belief am I ready to question?
What part of me have I been dimming?

Because your truest self isn’t something you need to become. It’s something you get to remember. And when you do, life has a beautiful way of meeting you there.

My nephew/Godson, Nicholaus, his beautiful wife, Rachel, and their adventurous sons, Ronan and Noah.