Incongruent living is exhausting

“Incongruent living is exhausting.” – Brené Brown

As I’ve been reading ‘The Gifts of Imperfection’ by Brené Brown recently, I was led to reflect on this quote. Here are some brief thoughts:

I call myself a people-pleaser-in-recovery! Maybe that’s why I resonate with this quote. For so many years I lived each day subconsciously making choices and doing things that I thought others would approve of and at the absolute depths, would make them like me more. Phew! That is exhausting… even as I write that, I notice myself take a deep breath.

Several years ago, when I was teaching the Diploma of Counselling, I had to teach this idea of being congruent and incongruent and it became one of my favourite buzz words at the time.

Basically:
To be congruent is to be in agreement with or in harmony with.
To be incongruent is to be in conflict with.

So when Brené says “Incongruent living is exhausting”, she’s talking about the fact that when we are living against our authentic selves (or in conflict with ourselves) it is much harder and more draining to do life.

That’s definitely the case for me. Plus I’m usually much more grumpy and hard to be around when I’m being incongruent.

Maybe you can take notice of whether your exhaustion is connected to you feeling like you have to be someone else to function in this world.

Take care on the journey as you dwell on this idea.