how to be the main character of your life

it's your world, we're just living in it.

step one: realize your worth

When you put everyone else before you, you find yourself begging to be noticed. Your shadow goes out its way to draw attention to the fact that you’re tired of being overlooked. This is fool’s fuel. Energy wasted in the wrong things. Crawling from the depths, you emerge scathed, battered, and jaded. You find yourself becoming the enemy of everyone who dares to put themselves on stage. Why do they deserve the spotlight? You’ve been working so hard, no one even knows you’re the one who should be rewarded. You’re not superficial. You’re studious. You don’t care about the attention. You’re honorable. You’re authentic. You’re the real deal.

So…why are you so upset again?

When you wait on others to tell you’re worthy, you’re at the mercy of everyone else’s scorecards. You never feel like you’re on solid ground because your self-worth flows where attention goes. You may feel like you’re on top of the world when you get a handful of compliments, but then want to burn everything to the ground when you think no one is paying attention. Fool’s fuel. An energy harnessed under the guise of motivation. A burnout waiting to happen.

The secret to self-worth is knowing that you are worthy of care, attention, and respect. Even when you don’t have tangible evidence yet.

According to the University of North Carolina Wilmington, self-worth is the internal sense of being good enough and worthy of love and belonging from others. Self-worth is often confused with self-esteem, which relies on external factors such as successes and achievements to define worth and can often be inconsistent leading to someone struggling with feeling worthy.

Whereas it is important to have a solid understanding of our strengths and areas for growth, we also need to feel good enough even when we make mistakes or when things do not workout in our life as we had hoped.

When you believe you’re worthy of being noticed, you start to care about the preparation required to being in the spotlight.

step two: your villain origin story

You learned to prioritize everyone else’s needs before your own. From an early age you were told to sit down, shut up, and be grateful because someone brought you into this world and can easily take you out. You got older, went to work, and played nice with all the two-faced managers to get a promotion you already qualified for. You became a hopeless romantic and fell in love with someone who left you unsatisfied and disinterested in your pleasure.

In so many moments of your life you have forced yourself into a dark corner with a pretty little mask and wonder why when you look in the mirror, you don’t recognize who’s looking back.

This is your villain origin story. The catalyst to your journey of the main character. It’s the moment when the match strikes and you realize you’re through with putting others on a pedestal.

ask yourself: which cups have I filled before pouring my own? and what did that cost me?

step three: transmute your rage

When you realize how much you’ve tossed your desires aside for the betterment of others, grief happens. It’s the death of everything you’ve were taught and everything you’ve been. You find yourself in the liminal space between denial and potential. You’re angry at everyone and yourself. How did it get this far?

Sadness birthing rage. This feeling isn’t accidental; it’s essential. Rage is a potent fuel if harnessed strategically. When you’re so angry that you’ve waited this long to care about yourself, you channel this energy into motivation. This is the fuel, the energy, that moves the needle forward. If you never want to feel like this again (which you will) you must learn how you got here and why you choose to stay. You will come to this place over and over again. It’s no mistake. It’s no setback. It’s a divine reset. The womb for gestation. The moment before rebirth.

step four: the ego death

When the rage dissipates you’re left with a feeling that’s reminiscent of white noise. You’re asking, who am I without the expectation of others? What do I even like? What am I doing with my life? During this stage of your rebirth, you’re wondering who you are underneath it all.

One of the biggest challenges people face with becoming the main character of their life, is feeling like a phony. The first step into dismantling this problem, is to realize you’re already playing a character. The question is who had a hand in creating it? We learn to become characters to fit in, make our parents proud, get the job we want, and make people stay in our lives. We think this is us because we’ve played the role for so long. This isn’t you. This is the mask you wear to survive in a world that you’ve outgrown.

ask yourself:

• how do you present yourself to others? describe the masks you wear and who benefits from each one.

• how do these masks differ from your true self?

• what do you gain by playing a role that doesn’t align with your inner self?

• what would it feel like to embody a character that reflects your true self?

who are you?

Most of us cannot answer this question because we don’t take the time to get to know ourselves on a regular basis. We forget what we actually like to do, what gives us pleasure, and what we want to look like. Maybe it’s because we’re in survival mode. Maybe it’s because we believe we have to settle. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to face ourselves. If you’re ready to step into your main character magic, you have to understand that you are allowed to create who you want to be. You don’t have to settle for who you are now.

You can give yourself a nickname that becomes your real name. You can exaggerate features with makeup or surgery. You can change your favorite color. You can change the way you dress on certain occasions. You can cut your hair. Dye it. You can try a new hobby. You can create new values and beliefs. You can make new friends.

You can change your mind and change your life because you will it.

People who are comfortable with your mask will be confused when you remove it. They’ll think you’re a fraud, because they don’t know who you are. But this isn’t about them. You have to be happy with who you are when you leave this earth. You have to create your own world while you survive this one. If that’s surrounding yourself in the color green to be happy, then so be it.

The Green Lady of Brooklyn

the day my mask died

I had my first psychedelic ego death during my Saturn Return. It started during one of my depressive episodes where I gave god an ultimatum. “You give me a hint about my direction or I’m done with this game of life.”

The next day my best friend came over and wanted to do shrooms. We did this all the time to connect spiritually but this day was different. We decided to do them all night with no intention. This wasn’t something I normally did. I harvested this sacred plant myself and always respected it by consuming in spiritual ceremony. But I remembered me and god’s chat and said, “Fuck it.”

That night I consumed more than I ever had before. I panicked trying to come down from this high that made me feel like my spirit was leaving my body. I felt like I was dying. I’ve felt Spirit many times before, but this time their presence felt different. They didn’t want to talk or give me spiritual insight. I felt a wall and a message of “You’re not coming here. It’s not your time.” I felt like I was hovering over my apartment and being pushed back into my body. I resisted. I didn’t want go back. I could feel the density of my body and the world. It felt gross.

Eventually, I descended back into my body, on the bathroom floor swimming in a pool of sweat. Reluctantly, I stood up and looked in the mirror.

It was the first time in my life that I truly looked at myself. I’ve glanced to pick at a pimple or two, but seeing this shell that has carried my spirit all these years...the weight of that, was indescribable. Those few minutes felt like a lifetime. I felt like a spirit operating flesh. Alien-like. I didn’t feel connected to my body yet so I was able to look at this shell of a human with new eyes. I realized how disconnected I had been from my body, my look, my personhood. Everything that the world saw in me, I had never seen in such detail.

In that moment I realized I was a spirit having a human experience. That was the point, the hint I was searching for. If I wanted to change my life, I had to get comfortable with who I was. Even if that meant changing to someone who better matched my soul. I decided that I was going to devote more attention to myself. I was going to treat life like an experiment by becoming a project, and as a Virgo I love a project. I took the time to learn about myself all over again. What new things do I like? What colors have I not embraced that I actually feel drawn to? How have I been showing up in the house? online? to the store? Do I present myself in a way that makes my soul feel good?

I discovered that I had always been me in between the moments of searching for someone else. I just had to let the mask die and be reborn again.

I just had to look in the mirror.

step five: develop your character

You’ve shed the tears and pumped yourself up. Now is the fun part. You’re going to become a character. This isn’t about being fake, it’s knowing you have the power to transform yourself into the person you’ve always wanted to be. This isn’t a random person you’re pretending to be, it’s been you underneath it all. You just had to claim it to make it real.

“just as the moth in his desire to know the flame was willing to destroy himself, so must you in becoming a new person be willing to die to your present self.” — neville goddard

My favorite thing about watching near death experience videos is how much people say that we’re all characters acting in a play on Earth. Whether it’s true or not, doesn’t matter to me. I like to keep that in mind as I create my identity. I mean think about how much of your identity was created by someone else. Why not shed the layers that don’t feel good and become something you’re proud of?

Who are your favorite main characters? That’ll be a key to discovering this energy within yourself. Mine have always been femme fatales, thoughtful yearners, and ungovernable ragers. I find myself in these stories.

Where do you find you?

step six: build your dream world

It’s your world, we’re just living in it. In order to feel more in control of your life, you have to build your world from scratch. This is a creative exercise where you not only name your world, but you develop it by how you show up, who’s allowed in, and how it works by your will. It’s a critical step in your main character journey and it allows you to have something with weight to fall back on if you fall off track.

ask yourself: what is the dream world that I experience inside the planet that I’m living in? try to see it as separate before you advance to combining them. what is my role here and who contributes to it? what does it look like and what do I look like? what makes my dream world go ‘round?

I’ve learn loads of world building from the amazing, The Dream Mami and highly recommend their Dreamworld Trinity Course to get started on your dream world.

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📝 main character homework:

act as if you were a writer for a movie. this writer is your shadow self. describe your life now using the dan brown method.

• What is your character’s name? (what name do you go by now?)

• Establish their motivations and goals. (what are your biggest motivations and goals in life?)

• Choose a voice. (whose perspective has been the loudest in your life? i.e. who is telling your story?)

• Create a conflict. (what conflicts have you endured in this life?)

• Create a backstory. (who and what has played a critical role in your story?)

• Describe your character’s personality. (how would people describe you?)

• Paint a physical picture. (what do you usually look like every day? how do you dress? does your uniform change depending on where you go? describe it.)

• Develop secondary characters. (who in your life means the most to you? who helps you with everyday life?)

Now, complete the same activity as you create your new character, in first-person perspective. this is the person you crave to be. try to write things that you’ve never written before. strive for the BIGGER, BETTER version of yourself. this your higher self.

• My name is:

• My goals and motivations are:

• I tell my own story by:

• I struggle with:

• These type of people play a critical role in my story:

• I describe myself as:

• I usually look like:

  • dress as:

  • when I go to:

• These type of people help me with:

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Becoming the main character in your life is being intentional about the way you show up in the world so that waking up every day feels worth it. It’s realizing that you don’t have to play by all the rules you’ve been given. You can break the fourth wall. You can glitch the matrix. Your “dream you” will not magically fall into your lap and change your life. You have to change your existing routine to make space for the magical you to emerge. People wait a lifetime to come home to themselves. To say what they mean and mean what they say. To dress like a rockstar at the grocery store. To suddenly become a baker after years as a scientist.

No one knows the real you like you do. So you’ll have to get in the drivers seat this time. Start scripting your journey, directing your life, and embodying everything you crave to be so that you can live the life that you were always meant to.

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