Nobody Has It All Together
The Truth Behind the Moments We Do Not Share.
There is a quiet illusion that follows all of us around. The illusion that everyone else has their life sorted while we are the ones barely managing to keep up. You see people online sharing their best moments. You watch creators and entrepreneurs talk with confidence about discipline, clarity and routines. You read posts from people who seem to have the exact words you need to hear. And without meaning to, you begin to believe they are living a different kind of life. One without doubt. One without fear. One without spirals.
But the truth is far simpler. Nobody has it all together. No matter how polished someone appears, they are human. They wobble. They slip. They lose themselves for a moment. They fall back into old patterns. And this weekend reminded me of that in a way I did not expect.
My wife and I decided to take a short break to reset before the Christmas rush in the new venue. There has been a lot happening recently. We are renovating a house and dealing with unexpected financial pressure. I am moving the business after ten years in the same location. There are a number of other things happening at the same time and this year has pushed me emotionally, mentally and physically. A few days away felt necessary. A chance to breathe before everything became busy again.
The trip itself was lovely. But what I failed to anticipate was how much I was carrying. When you are constantly moving, it is easy to keep your mind distracted. It is only when you stop that everything you have been avoiding steps forward. The silence can feel louder than the noise. And that is exactly what happened. My mind started running. Worrying. Projecting. Thinking about everything waiting for me back home.
Even with all the tools I have learned over the years, the anxiety still lingered quietly in the background. I managed it. I enjoyed myself. I stayed present. But the weight was still there beneath the surface.
Then something small happened. Something harmless. Something that under different circumstances would have meant nothing. We bought a couple of Christmas candles. I placed my bag on top of them so they did not blow away in the wind. My wife asked if that would break them and I said it would be fine. When we got up to leave, we discovered they had snapped.
That tiny moment cracked something open inside me. It was as if the candle became a mirror for every worry I had been holding down. My mind spiralled. Fast. And suddenly every old thought I have ever had about myself rose to the surface. You cannot do anything right. You are useless. You do not think before you act. This always happens to you. You ruin everything.
None of it was true.
But thinking can be powerful when you are tired.
Thinking can drag you into places that emotion alone never would.
My wife talked me through it and grounded me again. And once the spiral passed, something became very clear. The problem was not the emotion. The emotion was simple. I was disappointed. I was frustrated. The real suffering came from the thoughts attached to the emotion. The stories. The interpretations. The old beliefs that had nothing to do with the present moment.
This is something many of us forget. A feeling is not the enemy. It is the thinking layered on top of the feeling that creates the storm. Emotion arrives and passes. Thinking attaches meaning to it and turns it into identity.
When you understand that, everything becomes lighter.
You do not need to be perfect to grow.
You do not need to be free from spirals to be strong.
You do not need to be flawless to help others.
You simply need to recognise the truth when it appears.
And the truth is this.
Even the people who seem to be guiding others fall sometimes.
Even the people who teach mindset work forget their own advice on a bad day.
Even the people who speak about clarity and emotional awareness have moments where they lose themselves.
They are not ahead of you.
They are simply further along the path of learning how to return to themselves.
If you have had a moment recently where something small set you off, where you spiralled, where old fears resurfaced and you questioned everything, remember this. You are not behind. You are not broken. You are not the only one. You are human. And being human means you will fall. What matters is how you rise. What matters is how you hold yourself while you do.
I explore this experience in more detail in my latest Inner World video. You can watch it here:
Nobody has it all together.
And the moment you stop expecting perfection from yourself, the easier it becomes to breathe again.