The Truth Will Set You Free. But First It Will Piss You Off.

Today, I was taking a walk, like I usually try to do on the weekend (a moment to check in with myself and escape the habit of vegging in front of the TV all day). On my walk, I threw on a podcast, “We Can Do Hard Things” by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle. I didn’t go to the latest episode — something in me decided to press play on the Gloria Steinem one.

The episode was a “Best of” — a tribute to Gloria as she passed away on September 2 of this year. Right at the beginning of the episode, Glennon is introducing Gloria and mentions a quote by her “the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off” and that’s when I stopped listening to the episode and started to write.

Here’s what I wrote:

I used to think freedom came from getting my act together.

If I could just organize better, work harder, plan further ahead, anticipate every risk, solve every problem, and hold everything together, eventually I would earn peace. I would be safe.

That was the theory anyway (one my therapist lovingly poked holes in every time we met — God, love you, Janine).

The problem was that every time I reached a milestone, another one appeared.

A promotion led to bigger responsibilities.

A home led to more maintenance.

A goal led to a bigger goal.

A solved problem led to three new ones.

For years I thought the answer was improvement. More effort. More optimization.

What I'm slowly learning is that sometimes the thing keeping you trapped isn't your circumstances. It's the story you've been telling yourself about them.

"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off."

Nobody tells you that part — but Gloria did.

Nobody tells you that the truth often arrives as grief. It shows up when you realize you've been carrying expectations that were never yours. When you discover that being the capable one isn't actually a personality trait. It's a survival strategy (thanks again, Janine!).

When you realize that independence can become isolation (if I don’t rely on anyone, no one can let me down).

That achievement can become avoidance (if I show how good I am over here, no one is looking over there where I don’t want them to).

That productivity can become a really socially acceptable way to never sit still long enough to feel your feelings (let me help everyone else so I don’t have to sit alone with my thoughts for even a second).

And if you're anything like me, that realization is profoundly irritating. Because once you see it, you can't unsee it.

For most of my life, being the reliable one worked: Need someone to solve a problem? I'll figure it out. Need someone to connect the dots? I'm already three steps ahead.

Need someone to carry the weight? Hand it over.

To be clear, these aren't bad qualities (as Janine lovingly points out, there are pros and cons to everything). These qualities have helped me build an amazing career, lead teams, navigate complexity in work and life, and get through some genuinely difficult seasons. But somewhere along the way, I started believing that my value came from being useful.

Not from being loved.

Not from being me.

From being useful.

That's a dangerous bargain to make with yourself.

Because eventually life hands you something you can't solve with competence.

A season of burnout.

A family transition.

A loss.

A health challenge.

A relationship dynamic that's been there your whole life but suddenly becomes impossible to ignore.

And all your usual tools stop working. You can't spreadsheet your way out of it. Trust me, I've tried.

What makes the truth so frustrating is that it usually reveals something you've spent years avoiding. Not because you were weak but because you were surviving.

I used to think hyper-independence was strength.

The truth?

Sometimes it's fear.

I thought perfectionism meant I cared about quality.

The truth?

Sometimes it's fear of judgment.

I thought if I could just learn enough, understand enough, analyze enough, I would feel safe.

The truth?

Knowledge isn't the same thing as healing.

That realization was not empowering. It was deeply, profoundly annoying.

Because the moment you understand the real issue, you lose the ability to blame the wrong thing.

You can't blame work for every feeling of exhaustion when part of the exhaustion comes from the pressure you put on yourself.

You can't blame everyone else's expectations when you're the one secretly holding yourself to impossible standards.

You can't keep running the same pattern once you've recognized it. The truth removes your excuses and then it forces you to make a decision. You can either stay stuck in what you’ve always done, or you can make a different choice. On the other side of that frustration is freedom.

Not freedom in the Instagram quote kind of way. Real freedom.

The freedom to stop proving.

The freedom to ask for help.

The freedom to rest without earning it.

The freedom to disappoint people occasionally and survive.

The freedom to let your life be messy while it's being lived.

The freedom to stop treating yourself like a project that needs fixing.

Over the last couple of years, life has forced me into conversations I didn't really want to have:

About burnout.

About identity.

About caregiving.

About family.

About what success means.

About who I am when I'm not performing, producing, leading, organizing, solving, planning, and carrying everyone else's emotional luggage through the airport.

The answers haven't always been comfortable.

In fact, most of the important truths showed up wearing steel-toed boots. They kicked down doors I had spent years reinforcing (so annoying right?!)

But every time I've accepted one of them instead of arguing with it, something I never expected to happen, happened: I got lighter. Not because the circumstances changed. Because I stopped carrying things that were never mine to carry.

That's the part people leave out of the quote. The truth doesn't magically make life easy. It just makes life honest. And honesty takes less energy than pretending.

So yes. The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off.

Because before it sets you free, it asks you to let go of the stories, identities, coping mechanisms, and survival strategies that helped you get this far.

You'll mourn them.

You'll argue with them.

You'll defend them.

You'll probably write several journal entries explaining why you're right and the truth is wrong (not speaking from experience or anything haha).

And then eventually, if you're lucky, you'll surrender. Not because you gave up but because you're finally ready to stop fighting yourself.

And that's when freedom begins.