Whenever I’d get involved with someone new, Blaine as I knew her would disappear. Or so I thought…

What I know now is that I entered the relationship already lost.

I started straying from myself long before I was old enough to date.

Like so many of you, I was conditioned from a young age to hold myself back and give, give, give to ensure the needs of others, especially men, were met before my own.

It was my blueprint as a woman.

I was born into a sneaky, subtle, modeled-by-other-women expectation that I should obliterate my identity for the sake of what others and culture “required” of me.

I would be a good girl.

And somehow – this is the weird part – I confused this programmed way of being as my true self.

As a child, I would seek the intoxicating elixir of approval, validation, and praise. So, like a chameleon, I would shift into the person that others around me wanted me to be.

I was really skilled at that, and rewarded for it.

It’s one of the reasons I was so successful in the corporate world. I would bend over backwards, endure any inconvenience that arose, change my plans, take one for the team, work all night, you name it.

All so that a man would never feel uncomfortable.

Which led me to the question: Is “good” really good?

If I told you I had all of this unraveled and I was free of it, I’d be lying. But I’ve come a long way over the past several years.

I’ve decreased my adherence to the directives of the outer world and shifted my attention to the tune of my inner world.

All while wrestling with the question: “As I try to stop being Truman in my own Truman Show bubble, am I liberating myself, betraying others, or both?”

Nothing, and I mean nothing has helped me untangle this like the experience of yoga teacher training.

The spiritual journey is called an awakening for a reason.

Yoga teacher training is both a path to examine our unique conditioning, history, and emotional legacy and an opportunity to objectively review the myths, beliefs and illusions fed to us by our family and culture.