Awakening from the Dream: Returning to Your Authentic Self

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This is the second article in the Authentic Self Blog Series. If you’ve already read the first article, The Manual We Inherited, you’ve begun exploring the moment when we first start to believe something is wrong with us. In this article, we’ll follow that thread forward to look at what happens next. We’ll explore how that belief takes hold, how we fall asleep to who we really are, and what it means to begin waking back up.

How the Dream Begins

We don’t begin life believing something is wrong with us. In the beginning, we are fully awake. Present. Whole. Connected. But as those early messages of “not enough” start to land, we begin to doubt ourselves. Slowly and quietly, we drift away from that original sense of being and into something more scripted.

This is the moment the dream begins.

It isn’t a peaceful dream. It’s more like a fog, a distortion, or a protective illusion. We start adapting to the world around us, shaping ourselves into who we think we need to be—someone more acceptable, more lovable, more likely to fit in. We begin to play roles, follow rules, and edit our behavior to survive. Over time, we forget we’re dreaming.

For many of us, the dream becomes so familiar that it starts to feel like reality. The roles we play and the rules we follow become second nature. And the real version of us—the curious, creative, fully alive version—gets buried beneath all that pretending.

But the real you is still in there.

The First Glimpses of Waking

Recovery, in the deepest sense, is the process of waking up. It doesn’t usually happen all at once. More often, it begins with a flicker. A sense of freedom. A glimpse of joy. A moment of feeling truly at peace. Something inside you remembers. And in that remembering, you begin to stir.

Waking up isn’t always easy. At first, it may feel disorienting or even painful. You may begin to notice how much of your life was shaped by fear or by someone else’s expectations. You may grieve for the years you spent disconnected from yourself. But that grief is part of the awakening. It means you're coming back to life.

And here’s a gentle reminder. Even after you start waking up, it's easy to fall back asleep. The pull of old patterns can be strong. You might find yourself slipping into roles you thought you'd left behind or believing stories you know aren't true. That’s not a failure. It’s simply part of the process.

What matters is this: the more you wake up, the more you know what it feels like to be awake. And once you’ve felt that, it gets easier to return.

Life When You’re Awake

When you're awake, life feels different. You're not performing or proving anything. You're just being. You're curious, present, and playful. You're in touch with something steady and unshakable inside of you. Even if that feeling doesn’t last all day, the more often you visit it, the more it becomes home.

In the next article, we’ll take a closer look at how we begin to let go of the old beliefs and internal instructions that shaped our false identity. These old “manuals” were once essential for surviving, but they no longer serve the life you’re waking up to now. Together, we’ll explore what it takes to stop living from those outdated rules and begin living from the truth of who you really are.