“I’m exhausted by my own hypocrisy.”

The body’s reaction to recognizing truth is relaxation, a literal, involuntary release of muscle tension.

Emotionally, we feel grumpy, sad, or numb. Physically, our immune systems and muscles weaken; we might get sick, and even if we don’t, our energy flattens. Mentally, we lose focus and clarity. That’s how it feels to be out of integrity.

I’d found a bit of my true nature, which really did enjoy learning and really did love my family. But the vast majority of my actions were responses to cultural pressures. I was halfway up Mount Delectable and climbing fast, toward nothing that made me genuinely happy.

Our culture defines “success” as rising through bureaucracies,

Listen: the problem isn’t how hard you’re working, it’s that you’re working on things that aren’t right for you. Your goals and motivations aren’t harmonizing with your deepest truth. They didn’t come from your own natural inclinations. They came from the two forces that drive us all off our true paths: trauma and socialization.

The experience of noticing we’re on the wrong path, in what feels like the wrong life, comes to almost all of us at some point.

Your true nature loves things for their capacity to bring genuine delight, right here, right now. It loves romps, friends, skin contact, sunlight, water, laughter, the smell of trees, the delicious stillness

Still, every time we make choices or assume appearances that don’t align with our integrity, we really do become more vulnerable to physical problems,