As I’ve said (or at least alluded to) in every post so far—and will probably keep saying—your Muse, especially if you’ve struggled to reach them, doesn’t arrive with fireworks. For those of us who had to suppress our creativity just to get by, the Muse is more like a slow-moving shadow forming in the corner of our awareness. They peek through every time we’re trapped in a meeting that could’ve been an email, and we start dreaming up a whole new world to escape to—right before someone says, “Well, we finished a little early, so I guess we’ll give two minutes back to you.” Wow. Thanks, Tom.
The Muse doesn’t come cloaked in drama or ritual. They’re shaped by the steady grind of self-abandonment. They’re made in the tiny self-betrayals: when we smile instead of scream, nod instead of walk out, laugh instead of cry. I suspect they arrive in this world with us—curious, passionate, on fire. But over time, through daily conditioning, that fire gets dimmed and what makes us beautifully us, begins to erode.
For me, the erosion became impossible to ignore about two years ago, when I was informed that my “leadership development” would involve four straight days of corporate role-playing at headquarters in Texas. No context. No prep. Just the ominous promise of lanyards and forced eye contact.
I’m an introvert—and for a long time, especially in corporate spaces, that’s been a bit of a dirty word. We’ve been sold the myth that being loud and overbearing is synonymous with leadership—usually by the loudest and most overbearing among us. So imagine my delight at the idea of spending nearly a week being observed by strangers while I acted out fake conversations, in a fake role, under fake circumstances, with an undetermined fake outcome based on whatever fake role the other person was pretending to play. That whole “positive affirmations in the mirror” and “fake it till you make it” mindset? No thanks. My body said “no” before I even opened the calendar invite.
The worst part? Role-playing in corporate settings is the ultimate illusion of effort. It’s what a company does when they want to appear invested in their people without actually paying for anything that works. There’s plenty of research pointing to why it doesn’t work well—especially for introverts or individuals already stuck in people-pleasing mode. It’s just management verifying that you know your lines. But it feels like training, and feelings are cheaper than results. As long as it looks like engagement, that’s what we’ll call it, right?
I was overcome with irritation. I’ve been forced to sit through dozens of role playing exercises in my life. The only thing I took away from any of them, was that they don’t work, at least not for me and everyone else I’ve ever spoken to afterwards. I had finally reached a point in my life where I thought maybe those days were over, only to find out that there was just more of it on the other side, and on steroids. But more than that—I was lit up. On fire. And not in the “motivational hashtag” kind of way. This was combustion of the emotional variety. Rage-fueled clarity. My trauma was doing the talking and my keyboard became its microphone. The Muse had whispered “write it up – and tear it down”.
I wrote furiously for days—digging up research, reading case studies, comparing results. I thought I was just venting about training models that gave me hives—and for good reason. But something deeper was moving. I had cracked open the door to a part of myself I didn’t realize I had sealed shut: my Muse.
It turned out the Muse wasn’t just giving me a way to express my frustrations about role-playing. She wasn’t just nudging me to drag shitty HR policies for filth. She was trying to tell me and show me something bigger. That I’d been role playing for years—and I was exhausted. The idea that I now had to go perform even more in a conference room at HQ, when I was already performing every day? When I was already doing the job? When I was a top performer? My results and glowing feedback from clients weren’t enough? I had to go dance like a monkey for treats? That was it.
Every day, I got up and put on a costume. Even when no one asked. Even when I didn’t need to. I defaulted to the version of myself that could pass inspection—charming enough to get by, not so memorable that I’d be a threat. I wouldn’t just be pretending in Texas—I was pretending in life.
Don’t get me wrong—good pretend can be exhilarating. I live in pretend worlds constantly now: dreaming up art pieces, sketching characters for short stories I write for pleasure. And maybe the pretending I did was exhilarating enough for a while. After all, it was paying off: It got me my literal childhood dream house that I stared at every time I rode my bike by it, a car I loved that I promised myself I would get someday, I went on vacations to other countries. I was considered reliable and credible. My clients trusted me, and our referral sources sought me out because I was honest. They didn’t want the role-playing they got from everyone else—the ones reciting leadership scripts that didn’t align with reality.
The Muse started as a whisper beneath my cynicism. But then I recognized a pattern. I’d done this before—rage-typing emails, writing manifestos that now sit untouched on old laptops. But this time was different. Because alongside the fire came questions. The kind that drop into your gut like you swallowed the flail end of a Morningstar.
When did I first start pretending?
When did I begin editing myself in real time?
When did I learn that joy could make me a target?
And that’s when I remembered… Lamb Chop.
The Puppet and the First Prickle of Shame
I was five.
Our school guidance counselor—who my memory insists looked exactly like Shari Lewis—came into our kindergarten classroom with a Lambchop puppet. I loved Lamb Chop. She was soft and silly and familiar. Her voice, her tufts, her cartoon lashes were “on fleece” – ba-dum-cha. She was right up there with Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Rogers, and Alf.
When the counselor asked for a volunteer, my hand shot up like it had a nervous system of its own. I was chosen. Dream fulfilled.
The lesson was about how to “ignore mean behavior.” I was supposed to stand there and not react to Lamb Chop, no matter what she said.
That sounded… off. Lamb Chop wasn’t mean. She was Lamb Chop. And there she was, suddenly inches from my face, saying:
“Do you want to play with me?”
I didn’t just respond. I lit up. I said yes, probably clapped, maybe even bounced. I was five. That’s what five-year-olds do when a beloved puppet wants to hang out.
And then—came the laugh. The disapproving look. The correction. I had done it wrong.
I was given a second try. This time, she started singing the alphabet and asked me to join her. And I knew the alphabet. Probably better than anyone. I held out as long as I could—maybe until “D”—and then caved.
Scolded again. Sent back to the carpet. Replaced by another volunteer.
I had failed—.
Something constricted in me. It wasn’t fear. It was worse. It was humiliation. A sudden, sinking awareness that I had misunderstood the rules of the world. I had loved too loudly. Trusted too quickly.
And for the first time, I understood: being yourself could cost you.
Was that the moment everything changed? No. I didn’t throw down my juice box and declare, “This marks the end of my authenticity!”
But it was the first remembered drop in a bucket that would eventually overflow.
Because that’s how it works. One humiliation doesn’t break us. But the next one builds on it. And the next. Until we look up and realize we’ve contorted ourselves into someone who never gets picked on. Someone who never gets noticed. Someone who never risks being that vulnerable again.
The Muse Isn’t the Wound. They’re the One Holding the Map.
Your muse is not the trauma or the shame. They’re the archivist. The collector. The part of us that keeps the real stuff safe while we figure out how to survive without it. Every time we filter ourselves, they catch what we drop. Every time we silence a truth, they file it away.
They’re the keeper of the unsaid.
And eventually—when it’s time—they return.
The book I started writing to rail against corporate role-playing wasn’t just a rant. It was her. Speaking through me, allowing me to explore the emotion until I got back to this moment on my own. Using my corporate heartburn to crack open an older wound I could finally see clearly and begin to tackle. One that had nothing to do with leadership training and everything to do with how deeply I’d learned to regurgitate a script out of fear.
So here’s my question for you:
What’s the first time you remember feeling humiliated?
Not just embarrassed—but exposed. Like you were too much, too soon.
Who was there?
What did you start to believe about yourself after that?
And what part of you has been sitting quietly in the Muse’s keeping ever since?
Go find your Lambchop moment.
Not because it explains everything—but because it might explain the beginning of something. Something that built over time.
Something that reshaped you into someone you didn’t mean to become.
And when you find it?
Don’t run.
Sit down.
Listen.
Your muse isn’t here to hurt you.
Your muse is here to hand you back the parts you left behind so you can start navigating back to authenticity.
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