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The Real Me

This morning, while meditating, I recalled something I said yesterday about a film my wife was watching. I had commented that the lead actor’s performance wasn’t very good.

As I thought about that remark, a deeper question came to mind: What makes someone a bad actor?

Perhaps we don’t believe they are the person they’re supposed to be. Their emotions seem unconvincing. Their responses don’t feel natural. Perhaps the script has poorly defined the character—or the actor was simply the wrong choice for the role.

Then I turned the question toward myself:

Am I a bad actor in the portrayal of my own life?

Who is writing my script? Am I living my own story, or following someone else’s version of who I should be?

In the story of my life, what character am I trying to portray? How do I think I’m supposed to act?

Looking through the lens of recovery, I can see many times when I adopted a persona that someone else expected of me—or imposed upon me. Feeling unable to be my real self, I performed the role I believed was required.

Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage.” There are many ways to interpret those words. For me, they bring to mind how easily I can lose myself in a performance: pretending to be someone else, hiding parts of myself, or becoming whatever seems necessary to fit in at a particular time in my life.

Sometimes I play those roles because I lack confidence in who I really am. I look to other people’s reactions for reassurance that I’m getting the performance right.

But recovery is helping me ask a different question:

What would it mean to live honestly as the person God knows me to be?

Admitting that I am powerless over my hurts, hang-ups, and habits clears a path for me to accept God’s understanding of me. I can begin letting go of the judgments and expectations that have shaped so much of my life—including my own.

I am learning that confidence in my true self can grow alongside trust in God. I don’t have to have every line memorized or every response rehearsed. I can acknowledge what I feel, admit what I don’t know, and allow myself to be imperfect.

Turning my life over to God was hard. Turning over my will was harder still.

Yet choosing to surrender my will may have been the best act of self-will I have ever made.

God is a wonderful Higher Power—and, I am discovering, a wonderful scriptwriter and director.

Perhaps, under His direction, I can finally find the courage to be the real me.

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