I used to feel such a pull to prove my value by doing something big.
It started when I was a kid. I wanted to do something that mattered. But I didn’t understand that “big” usually comes from a thousand small, ordinary steps. So I never did anything big.
Back then, ‘big’ meant making a dent—being seen, remembered, needed. I didn’t realize that needing to be big is often just a small self trying to survive.
In hindsight, I think that might have been a gift.
If I had succeeded early, I might have become semi-satisfied—chasing achievements not for their own sake, but for how they propped up my sense of worth.
And that might have worked.
For a while.
But it would’ve taken me further from the very thing I needed most.
After living more than half a century, I’m no longer chasing value through impact.
I’m seeking something quieter—
The simple knowing that I am already valuable.
Not because of what I do.
But because I am.
That search doesn’t match how society talks about success.
There are no awards for inner stillness.
But I’ve found this path more honest. More alive. More peaceful.
And maybe, just maybe, I was protected from the rush of early accomplishment—
So that I could learn how to sit with discomfort, instead of covering it up with the next big thing.
To let go of the baggage I thought I needed to carry.
To stop performing for worthiness and start waking up to the miracle that’s always been here.
The glorious reality of life as it is—
Unfiltered by fear.
Unshaped by expectation.
Just presence. Just peace.
Why Your Achievements Still Leave You Empty
We’re told that if we shape ourselves into something exceptional, we’ll finally feel like we matter.
So we do our best to create something that will hold.
And for many of us, it’s like glassblowing.
You gather heat, pressure, and breath.
You form something slowly, carefully—trying not to let it collapse.
You hope it will turn out beautiful. Impressive. Worth something.
But deep down, you’re not just trying to make something.
You’re trying to feel something.
Secure. Seen. Significant.
And yet…
What if the shape you’ve been blowing your whole life was never the point?
From a young age, we’re taught that the path to worth is upward and outward.
Be rare.
Be needed.
Be specific enough to stand out—
and maybe, just maybe, you’ll finally feel like enough.
So we begin blowing the glass.
Carefully. Forcefully. Desperately.
We form identities, achievements, talents, impressions.
We call it ambition. Growth. Purpose.
But often it’s just fear in formal wear.
“You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep others warm.”
— Unknown
The pain is: it works—until it doesn’t.
Maybe you do become good at something.
Maybe you build a life people admire.
Maybe you even reach a version of “rare” that turns heads.
But inside?
You still feel like you’re shaping smoke.
The more impressive the form, the more hollow the echo inside.
“The opposite of belonging is fitting in.”
— Brené Brown
You’ve spent years trying to “be someone”—
by building the brand, writing the book, climbing the ladder,
being impressive in all the right ways.
But when it’s quiet and no one’s watching,
you feel lost.
Like it’s never enough.
Like you’re never enough.
You’ve been blowing into glass for decades—
But you were never taught how to stand still
and feel the space within it.
The Hidden Battle Between Your Lower Self and Higher Self
You can keep blowing the glass. Or you can step back from the fire.
At some point, we all reach a moment where we realize:
The life we built to feel valuable… might be the very thing keeping us from feeling whole.
That moment isn’t dramatic.
It’s subtle.
It sounds like burnout.
It feels like dissatisfaction you can’t explain.
And eventually, you face a quiet choice:
You can keep chasing value.
Or you can choose to stop being run by the part of you that never feels like enough.
Michael Singer would say that part is your inner disturbance—the mental-emotional layer that reacts to everything.
It doesn’t want peace.
It wants control.
Because it thinks control will finally make it feel okay.
But that part is not who you are.
“You’re not even a human being. You just happen to be watching one.”
— Michael A. Singer, Living Untethered
Hawkins calls it the lower self:
The identity shaped by fear, pride, craving, and false responsibility.
It feeds on performance, approval, validation.
It’s small and limited.
The higher self doesn’t need to chase value because it knows it’s already whole.
It acts from love, not lack.
It doesn’t need to matter—because it is.
“The more we let go, the higher we rise in consciousness. What we hold on to drags us down.”
— David R. Hawkins, Letting Go
That’s the deeper current beneath both teachings.
Yes, Singer and Hawkins take different routes:
– Singer invites you to stay seated in awareness as the world stirs the dust inside you.
– Hawkins invites you to release the emotional charge behind the dust itself.
But they’re walking the same direction—
toward freedom, toward presence, toward truth.
I choose depth, even if I never make a blip on a bigger stage.
I choose something real, even if no one applauds.
Because I’ve seen where the other path leads.
And I don’t want to be hollow anymore.
And when you live long enough from that false center, you start to feel it.
Not just emotionally—but existentially.
What You Lose When You Keep Trying to Prove Yourself
Because even if the glass looks perfect, it still might shatter when no one’s looking.
There’s a hidden cost to performing your value instead of living from it.
And it’s not just burnout.
It’s not just exhaustion.
It’s something deeper:
You start to believe the lie the lower self has been whispering all along:
“If you stop proving your worth, you’ll disappear.”
So you keep going.
You stay impressive.
You stay responsible.
You stay in control.
And inside, you go missing.
The very thing you feared.
The soul doesn’t crave recognition.
It craves realness.
Not outcomes. Not optics. Not applause.
Just something that feels alive and sacred again.
And when that ache gets ignored for too long, something breaks:
Joy gets replaced with anxiety masked as ambition
Peace gets replaced with restlessness disguised as drive
Meaning gets replaced with a highlight reel of moments that looked good… but didn’t land
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.”
— Howard Thurman
Because what the world needs isn’t more rare, specific, high-stakes people trying to earn their place.
What the world needs is more people
who are no longer run by the belief
that they have something to prove.
The Truth That Changes Everything: You’re Already Enough
What if your worth isn’t hidden in something rare… but in something quiet?
The truth is simple, but it can feel radical when you’ve spent a lifetime earning your way into feeling okay:
You don’t have to become valuable. You already are.
You’ve just been taught to chase value instead of access it.
To perform instead of live.
To become something impressive instead of someone real.
And the part of you that’s exhausted?
That’s not weakness.
That’s honesty.
Michael Singer would say:
You’ve been living through your preferences, your resistances, your mental narratives—all trying to avoid discomfort and create safety.
But what if you don’t need to do any of that?
What if you could let the moment pass through you
without controlling it…
and still be whole?
“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.”
— Ram Dass
David Hawkins would say:
You’re not upset because you haven’t reached your goals.
You’re upset because you’re holding on to the emotional energy that says you must.
Let go of the need.
Let go of the craving.
And the thing you were chasing… might already be here.
You can still build.
You can still create.
You can still pursue excellence—
But from fullness, not from fracture.
From love, not lack.
From peace, not pressure.
And that changes everything.
4 Gentle Ways to Let Go of the Pressure to Perform
So how do we begin to unhook from a lifetime of proving?
It starts with honest awareness.
A willingness to stop bargaining with fear.
And the courage to let enough-ness be the baseline—not the finish line.
Here are four gentle shifts to begin.
1. Ask the deeper question behind your striving
“What am I hoping this will give me that I don’t already feel?”
Sometimes the goal isn’t wrong.
It’s just carrying the weight of your identity.
Let that part be seen. Let it soften.
Gentle Reframe: Not everything driven by pressure is wrong—but it is exhausting. What’s underneath might need more attention than the outcome ever did.
2. Practice doing something meaningful without needing it to make you matter
Write the post. Teach the class. Share the idea.
But leave your ego out of it.
Let it be pure. Let it be free.
You’ll start to feel the difference in your nervous system.
Gentle Reframe: Be mindful of subtle deals you make with yourself—“If this does well, I’ll finally feel okay.” Try doing it without the deal.
3. Try stillness—not as a technique, but as a test
Sit quietly without a plan or performance.
See what comes up.
Let yourself feel the discomfort of not doing something “valuable.”
That’s where the roots of the lower self get exposed.
Don’t fix it. Just see it.
Gentle Reframe: Stillness isn’t laziness. It’s what your spirit sounds like when it’s not trying to impress anyone.
Want a deeper process? Here’s one I wrote:
🔗 How to Let Go Without Forcing It
4. Pay attention to what drains your presence
You don’t have to quit everything.
Just notice:
Which interactions feel like performance?
Which tasks make you feel small if you don’t do them “right”?
Where do you feel like you’re disappearing?
Asking these questions shows you where the weight is.
And where the letting go can begin.
This isn’t about changing your life overnight.
It’s about living with a new kind of honesty.
The kind that doesn’t negotiate with fear.
The kind that lets truth set the pace.
Wholeness Isn’t Earned—It’s Remembered
You don’t have to shatter the glass.
You just have to stop mistaking it for who you are.
You’ve done so much.
You’ve built, carried, achieved.
You’ve tried to be good. To be needed. To be worth something.
You’ve kept going—even when it hurt—because something inside you believed that mattering came from motion.
But maybe now…
you’re ready to lay that down.
Maybe you’re ready to see what’s left
when you stop proving and start being.
Because value doesn’t live in urgency.
It doesn’t live in rarity or praise or performance.
It lives in presence.
It lives in the way you inhabit this moment, unguarded.
It lives in the space that opens when you let go of becoming… and return to being.
“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you.”
— Paul Coelho (attributed)
You don’t need to change everything today.
You don’t need to find your purpose or fix your patterns before you rest.
You just need to stop long enough
to feel the truth rising beneath the noise.
That you are valuable.
Already.
Now.
Let that truth live in you today.
Let it shape you.
Let it free you—quietly, completely—from the lie that you must do something rare to be something real.
And if the world never claps for you,
you’ll still be whole.
Trevor
If this letter helped you loosen your grip on proving, chasing, or performing—
maybe there’s someone else quietly carrying that weight too.
Would you be willing to pass it along?