“To be true to yourself is not as simple as a choice. There must also be deaths and grievings. For, to be true to yourself requires you no longer making other people the deciding gods of your worthiness.”

— Jaiya John

When you're true to yourself, time bends.

One hour becomes eight.Two days become a year.Moments stretch open and fill you.Because you’re not just existing anymore.You’re living.

And that shift? It’s not metaphor. It’s biochemical.Being true to yourself isn’t some mindset thing—it rearranges your entire physiology.

Your hormones, your neurotransmitters, your inflammatory pathways—They respond to truth.They stabilize.Because your body finally knows you're not pretending anymore.

For years, I followed the textbook life.The checklist we’re all handed.

University.Job.Find a partner.Get married.Have kids.Push through.Pretend.Keep it together.Survive midlife.Plan for retirement.Hope it’s enough.

And I remember one moment, vividly.I was 20, in Boston, starting my music career.I had just moved into my apartment and there were two lonely chairs in the living room.My friend was there, and I said something like,“We need to buy a couch. A center table. An entertainment system. A TV.”

And even as the words left my mouth, something inside me whispered—Do I really need any of that?

But the pressure to “do it right” was louder.So I bought it all.

And it felt… wrong.I still remember the weirdness of that moment today, almost 30 years later.That tightness in my chest. That misalignment in my gut.The feeling of compliance… dressed up as freedom.

That was the lie.Because what no one tells you is that this entire system runs on the assumption that you don’t have a choice.

But you do.

And that moment—when you finally know you do?That’s liberation.

Because living a life that’s not yours isn’t noble.It’s not functional.It’s not even survivable in the long term.

It’s a prison.

And what makes it worse is the illusion that you’re free.Because if you were actually behind bars, at least your body could stop fighting.But when the cage is invisible?When your days look “normal” on the outsidebut your cells are screaming on the inside?You don’t adapt.You decay.

And here’s what no one tells you:When you finally start to live in alignment, people will leave.

Things will break.Old versions of you will die.You will feel the tearing.

But that pain?It’s not grief.It’s not tragedy.It’s the exit wound of getting your life back.

And I used to think it was just me who felt this.But after working with hundreds of people—mothers, executives, CEOs, lawyers, celebrities, athletes, artists, teenagers—I know better now.

So many people are quietly whispering:“I want to live differently.But I’m afraid.I don’t want to be alone.”

And yes—you might be alone for a little while.But that space?That silence?

That’s what finally makes room for a life that fits.

And once you feel that fit—You never go back.

So if you’ve spent your whole life doing the right thing, the expected thing, the explainable thing—

You didn’t miss the turn.You didn’t waste your life.You’re not late.

You can use everything you lived to create a life that’s even more yours.

Time starts working for you the moment you live aligned.Truth resets the clock.Your biochemistry follows.And everything real begins from there.