Reading Time: 8 mins #
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The first time someone called me “polished,” I went home and threw up. Not metaphorically. Actually bent over my toilet in my $2,800 studio apartment, watching my carefully curated lunch disappear while thinking: they have no idea I practiced that presentation seventeen times in my bathroom mirror, that I’d written my talking points on my palm in ballpoint pen, that underneath my Theory blazer my shirt was soaked through with panic sweat.
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I’d spent seven years painting myself into someone else. Each promotion is another layer, each achievement another coat of paint over the disaster that lies beneath. By thirty, I was a walking professional palimpsest, one of those ancient manuscripts where monks scraped off old text to write new prayers, except the old words constantly bled through. In certain light, at specific angles, you could see every version of me I’d tried to erase.
The Museum of Former Selves
Tucked neatly at a corner office with the good light. I was explaining strategic initiatives to the board when I heard it: my voice cracking in the same place it broke during my first presentation seven years ago. Same wobble on the word “implementation.” Same clearing of throat before “quarterly projections.” The same twenty-three-year-old terrorist, now dressed in a better suit.
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That’s when I understood I hadn’t transformed anything. I’d just painted murals over murals, hoping that if I added enough layers, the original disaster would disappear. However, recurring patterns don’t vanish simply because you buy a better concealer. They seep through like water damage, appearing at the worst moments, often when someone important is watching.
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My inauthentic success looked impressive on LinkedIn. VP title, speaking engagements, that one time I was quoted in Forbes about “authentic leadership” (the irony still makes me nauseous). But underneath the paint job, I was the same girl who ate lunch in the supply closet because the cafeteria felt too exposed; the same one who stayed until 10 PM, not from dedication but from terror that leaving meant being lazy.
The Architecture of Pretty Lies
Here’s what nobody tells you about painting over yourself: it’s exhausting. Every morning, I’d reconstruct this person who supposedly had her life together. Coffee at 5:15 AM while reading the Financial Times (which I hated but thought executives should read). Worked out at 5:45 AM doing CrossFit (which made me cry in my car afterward). Breakfast at 7 AM: a green smoothie that tasted like punishment but looked good on Instagram.
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The real me wanted to sleep until 8, eat toast with actual butter, and read romance novels on the subway. But I’d painted over her so many times I forgot she existed until she’d surface at 2 AM, eating cereal in my underwear, wondering how I’d become this person who scheduled “spontaneous” coffee meetings.
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When Pema Chödrön writes in When Things Fall Apart that “nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know,” she’s talking about this exact thing. The workaholic pattern I thought I’d conquered with boundary-setting workshops? Still there, just wearing nicer clothes. The people-pleasing I was supposedly therapized away? Still saying yes to projects that made me want to fake my own death.
[“The Architecture of Painted-Over Pain” – Image by moneycatzzz.com]
When Paint Meets Rain
My professional palimpsest revealed itself fully during what I now refer to as “The Conference Room Incident.” Major client presentation, the kind where everyone flies in from different offices. I’d prepared for weeks, had backup slides for my backup slides. Then the CEO asked an unexpected question, and suddenly I wasn’t the thirty-year-old VP I had been anymore. I was twenty-two, first job, frantically trying to look smart while feeling like everyone could see I’d googled “what is a KPI” the night before.
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My hands did this thing they used to do, rubbing my thighs under the table until my pants got shiny. My voice went up three octaves. I said “actually” fourteen times in one answer. Later, my colleague said, “You seemed different in there. Like… younger?”
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She meant it kindly, but I heard the truth: my paint was peeling.
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Dr. Gabor Maté explains in When the Body Says No that our bodies remember everything, store it all, even when we think we’ve moved on. My body still held the twenty-six-year-old who brought color-coded binders to meetings, because organization felt like armor, still housed the twenty-eight-year-old who volunteered for everything, because being needed meant being safe.
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You can’t actually stop recurring work habits through force. Trust me, I tried. I set timers to leave the office. Installed apps that locked my email after 7 PM. Hired a coach who charged $400 an hour to tell me I had “perfectionist tendencies” (no kidding). But trying to stop patterns without understanding them is like painting over mold. It looks fine until it doesn’t, and then it really doesn’t.
Reading the Walls Instead of Painting Them
The shift occurred, of all places, at a Sherwin-Williams. I was picking paint for my apartment, holding those little sample cards up to the light, when the salesperson said, “You know, sometimes the old color enhances the new one. That’s why primer isn’t always necessary.”
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I started crying right there between Benjamin Moore’s “Cloud White” and “Swiss Coffee.” What if that were true about people, too? What if the professional palimpsest wasn’t a problem but a feature? What if all my selves, even the embarrassing ones, were supposed to be visible?
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Tara Brach’s “Radical Acceptance ” sat on my nightstand for six months before I actually read it. When I finally did, this line stopped me: “The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.” I’d been imprisoning myself by refusing to accept that all my former selves were still present, still part of my supposed inauthentic success.
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So I started having conversations with them. Actually talking out loud to these painted-over parts (yes, my neighbors probably think I’m having a breakdown). “Hey, twenty-three-year-old who eats lunch in the supply closet, what are you scared of?” Answer: being seen as incompetent. “Twenty-six-year-old with the color-coded binders, what do you need?” Answer: to feel prepared for chaos.
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These weren’t character flaws. They were brilliant adaptations to impossible situations. The girl who stayed until 10 PM grew up in a house where productivity was equated with love. The one who said yes to everything learned early that agreement meant belonging. They weren’t mistakes to erase but teachers to honor.
The Masterpiece with Visible Layers
I stopped trying to hide the recurring patterns. Started introducing them in meetings: “I tend to over-prepare, so I have forty slides but promise only to show ten.” Started acknowledging the paint showing through: “I know I’m being controlling right now. Give me a minute to recognize that and choose differently.”
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Something weird happened. People started saying I seemed more “real.” One direct report told me, “You’re the first boss I’ve had who admits to being human.” The inauthentic success I’d been maintaining through constant repainting was actually less impressive than the messy, layered truth.
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My professional palimpsest is now something I read rather than hide. When I feel the twenty-two-year-old’s panic, I acknowledge her: “I see you. You’re safe. We know things now.” When the twenty-eight-year-old wants to volunteer for another committee, I ask: “Are we choosing this or is this choosing us?”
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Brené Brown writes in The Gifts of Imperfection that “authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.” But here’s what she doesn’t say explicitly: who we are includes every version we’ve ever been. The embarrassing ones. The trying-too-hard ones. The ones who ate feelings for breakfast and anxiety for lunch.
[“The Invitation to Stop Painting” – Image by moneycatzzz.com]
The Truth Under Everything
Last week, presenting to the same board where my voice cracked, I felt all my selves in the room. Twenty-three through thirty, all sitting in that Herman Miller chair, each with their own fears and strengths. Instead of painting over them, I let them inform my presentation. The cautious one reminded me to have backup data. The eager one brought energy to dry financial projections. The scared one kept me humble.
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The presentation went well. Not perfect, but real. Afterward, the CEO said, “You seemed really comfortable up there.” I almost laughed. Comfortable? I was hosting a convention of all my former selves, trying to keep them from fighting while discussing EBITDA.
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But that’s what comfort actually is. Not the absence of recurring patterns but the acceptance of them. Not painting thick enough to hide the past but letting it show through, adding depth to the present.
Your professional palimpsest isn’t a mistake. It’s a masterpiece that encompasses every version of you that brought you here. Every adaptation, every survival strategy, every beautiful and embarrassing attempt to become someone worthy of being seen.
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Stop painting. Start reading. The lies in the murals of your life are really truths you haven’t been ready to acknowledge. And once you do, once you really see them, they stop being lies and become the complex, layered, deeply human story of someone doing their best with what they knew at the time.
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That’s not inauthentic success. That’s the only success that actually matters.
What former self is bleeding through your current paint job? What would happen if you stopped trying to cover them and started conversing with them instead?
Resources for Reading Your Palimpsest:
- When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön
- When the Body Says No by Dr. Gabor Maté
- Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach
- The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
The Gifts of Imperfection
Magic of Tidying Up
Radical Acceptance
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Acknowledgment: Cover Image by moneycatzzz.com
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