The Secret Blind Spots That Enslave You – Until You Finally See Them

Here's What Everyone Knows About You—EXCEPT YOU (You Find Out Dead Last)

I could never admit my ex-wife was a burden.

From the very beginning.

Constantly wanting so much attention…

There was no time for anything else.

We had coffee every morning, with me listening to her for an hour.

By not admitting the truth.

I was abandoning myself.

I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

It was a strange, delusional place.

On my healing journey, I understood my wife, my family, and other people with relative ease.

But understanding myself was a different story.

Sometimes, there are OBVIOUS truths about ourselves that we refuse to see.

You’ve met someone who talks too much.

Like there’s a motor in their mouth.

Always on and on about something.

You may have somewhere to be.

Or you need them to listen to you at that moment.

All you want is for them to shut the fuck up.

But that person probably doesn’t even realize how much they talk.

Likewise, my ex didn’t realize she was a massive burden.

Or she didn’t care.

Likely both.

What obvious thing about you don’t you see?

We all have something.

I am a pathological giver.

Even to this day, my instinct to give is so overwhelming that I’m at high risk of setting bad precedents in my friendships.

But…

I have excellent friends.

Friends who reciprocate.

Who don’t take advantage of me.

Who show up for me when I need them, often without asking.

Everyone’s always known this about me.

But I am standing right in the epicenter of a massive blind spot.

It’s impossible to be aware of how others perceive you.

People walk this earth under varying degrees of self-awareness.

A fact which I find fascinating.

Sometimes, we hide our motivations from ourselves.

My ex, for example, a lot of her self-absorption was unconscious.

She didn’t always know that this was how she was being.

She was born into a family where this was normal.

It’s all she’s ever known.

Enablers and yes-men surround her.

People who are telling her that she’s perfectly normal.

I’m the weird one who complains about everything.

Look at her father?

He plays the role of a menial house slave perfectly.

Why can’t I get my act together?

I’m so fascinated with this idea: of the apparent truth that everyone else can see, that you cannot.

What does everybody know about you?

That you don’t know about yourself?

You may not have considered this.

But perhaps everyone knows you have low self-esteem.

You’re not fooling anybody.

Maybe everyone knows you’re a coward.

As the chauffeur, people sniffed out my cowardice.

An infuriating reality.

On the flip side, I tend to underestimate myself massively.

This is a lifelong habit.

When Tony Robbins fired me, I emailed my therapist and said, “I’m fucked.”

A few months later, I am starting to feel like an actual agency owner.

I am officially operating a new business.

One that expanded beyond the boundaries of my former identity.

What a refreshing place to be.

I habitually expect things to turn out worse than they do.

It’s so reliable that I can curve those feelings when I’m feeling pessimistic.

I couldn’t admit to my ex that I was unhappy.

I could complain about this or that.

But fundamentally, I wasn’t happy from the beginning.

She never met my needs the way I wanted and needed.

But I couldn’t claim that truth.

I was afraid to call my ex a burden, even when that’s precisely what she was being.

It sounds harsh to say.

But it’s the truth.

I know what life was like around her.

There was a constant power struggle.

A constant manipulating agenda.

She changed my understanding of the word relentless.

So why couldn’t I say it?

Why did I enable her to silence me?

This is one of the more fascinating insights.

On this healing journey, my task is to understand my inner child.

Their predicament.

Their reactions to trauma.

Their coping mechanisms.

Many things seem one way to the adult you…

That tells an entirely different story when seen from the perspective of your inner child.

I’ve struggled with high anxiety my whole life.

(Another obvious fact that I was essentially in denial about.)

Adult me would say that it’s because I have this immigration problem…

Or that money problem.

But I’ve been this way longer than any single problem.

When living in an unstable home.

Where things could explode or turn violent at any moment….

My child learned to cope by thinking up how things could go wrong.

By thinking up every disaster scenario, I could find a way to be prepared for the worst.

My kid self is terrified.

Walking around in a minefield.

This is the best he can do to survive.

We ignore the obvious about ourselves for a reason.

It’s not just our blind spots and cognitive biases.

Our brains have intentionally distorted reality and hidden the truth.

It’s your way of protecting yourself.

Human beings are so much more repetitive than I had ever imagined.

We operate on a variety of loops.

Some have been repeating since your earliest moments.

Yet, we barely register that we’re living groundhog day all day every day.

More evidence that you’re not as sane as you think you are.

What is most fascinating about this idea of self-deception?

There may be apparent truths about you that have been on a constant loop since you were a baby.

You’re entirely oblivious to them.

Everyone else sees it.

But you can’t.

You’re the last person to find out.

Not just that.

This is where things get wicked.

A blatant truth you can’t see.

And yet... it could be your raison d’etre.

It could be the most fundamental aspect of your identity.

Some things are so close to home that they become invisible.

So fundamental, you take them for granted until they fade into nothingness.

Until you forget all about them.

That’s where some of your best hidden treasures can be found.

We walk through the world thinking that everything is random.

But you can gain enough radical awareness to make sense of your life.

To understand why you do what you do.

To become predictable as fuck.

To know what you’re made of.

To be so sure of yourself that other people can’t fool you.

And that’s the irony of it all.

The most significant, defining truths about you—the ones shaping your entire life—are the ones you’re least likely to see.

Everyone else knows.

Maybe they’ve even tried to tell you.

But you’ll fight to stay blind. You’ll resist the truth even if it costs you everything.

Until one day, reality forces your eyes to open.

The question is—

Will you open your eyes before it’s too late?

How long before reality forces you to see?

Some truths about yourself are loud.
Others are so close, you go years without noticing.
Self-Love University is where you learn to see.
Not just the pain.
But the patterns.
The loops.
The little lies that keep you safe…
until they don’t.

Until next time,

Anton

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist.