I was first told my wisdom teeth needed to come out sixteen years ago, and this week I got them out.

I want to walk you through those sixteen years, because the story isn’t really about the teeth. I had the top two done back then and never went back for the bottom ones. Then I didn’t go to a dentist at all for twelve years. When I finally did, they found nothing. No cavities, nothing wrong, except one wisdom tooth that had gotten a little loose. They told me to get them out. I didn’t. My last visit before this month was a deep cleaning, two years ago, and it was the worst pain I can remember. But I guess that’s what you get for staying away from the dentist for 12 yrs. Then the loose tooth got very loose, and then it got infected, and then I didn’t have a choice anymore.

Here’s the part I want to be honest about. For sixteen years I had justifications not to go to the dentist, and they all sounded reasonable. I don’t really need to. They’re just trying to sell me something. Twelve years and no cavities, so clearly I’m fine. Every one of those was a sentence I could say out loud without flinching. None of them was the true one.

The true one was: I’m afraid of the pain.

Now, here’s what makes this interesting to me, because I’m not new to being afraid of things. Years ago I was terrified of public speaking. And the way I got over it was about as vulnerable as it gets: I put together a presentation on the fear of public speaking, and I went out and gave it at every Rotary club that would have me. I stood in front of rooms full of strangers and told them I was scared of standing in front of rooms full of strangers. I’ve had years of practice saying out loud and doing the things I’m insecure about or afraid of.

But admitting being afraid of physical pain was different. That one I’d never felt comfortable saying. I was raised to be tough, like a lot of us were, and toughness was something to be proud of. So I had two fears sitting in the car on the way to that appointment, and only one of them was about teeth. The first was the pain. The second was walking up to a dentist and saying so.

Notice how the hiding sounds. It sounds like I hate the dentist. Everybody says it. It gets a nod, maybe a laugh, and the conversation’s over. And look at where that sentence lands. It lands on the dentist. On the whole profession. It points out there. I’m afraid points inside. That’s the whole difference, and it’s why one of them is easy to say and the other one took me sixteen years.

So that day I said the true version. I told them about my last deep cleaning. I told them the pain was the worst I’d ever had. I told them I’d been putting this off for years, and that I was afraid.

Notice what they did, because it’s a short list and it’s a complete one.

They didn’t argue with me. They didn’t tell me not to be afraid. They didn’t take it personally, and nobody scolded me for ignoring the plan they’d given me sixteen years ago. They asked questions. They told me what they could do. But they did tell me I needed another deep cleaning. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t go to your follow-up visits. They scheduled my next deep cleaning with the hygienist who has a reputation for being gentle, and they told me I was in good hands.

On the way home I noticed something. I wasn’t as afraid of the next appointments. I wasn’t really looking forward to them, but I at least felt like I had a partner in this. Nothing had been done to my teeth yet.

It’s funny how fear seems to diminish when we feel heard, seen and reassured.

And this week I got the teeth out. The pain was minimal. It was gone in three days. Sixteen years of avoiding something that cost me three days.

That’s what got me thinking about the fears that are bigger than that. The ones that run every day for a lot of people. The fear that you don’t belong, don’t matter, that you’ll be let down or that you’re not good enough. That what happened to you once is going to happen again. And a fear that runs underneath all of those…the fear of being unworthy of love. And I think there’s one more: that if you ever said it out loud, you’d be dismissed, or blamed, or laughed at. What if the thing we’re most afraid of is sharing what we’re afraid of?

Imagine the dentist had said oh, don’t be afraid. Or sighed. Or made it about the sixteen years. I’d have sat in that chair alone with it, the way most people sit with their real fears every day. That office turned out to be a safe place…they’re trained for it and it shows. Most people don’t have one.

So here’s the distinction. Hiding and vulnerability.

From the outside they look almost the same. Both show up for the appointment. Both sit in the chair. The difference is one sentence. I hate the dentist is hiding. I’m afraid of the pain is vulnerability. One is your mind’s way of protecting you from pain, one is about finding safety so a need can be met. One lands on somebody else. The other one comes from inside you. One keeps everybody out, including you. The other one gives the person across from you something they can actually do.

And how you say it changes the room, not just for you, for them. Say I hate this and the room gets harder for everybody in it. Say I’m afraid of this and the room gets safer, because now there’s something to be gentle about.

You can’t argue a fear away. Yours or anyone else’s. What changes it is how it’s met the first time it’s said.

So here’s what I’m carrying into this week, and what I’d ask you to carry too. Two things.

Where am I saying I’m fine when I really am is afraid of sharing a fear? That’s the hiding, and it’s usually hiding in plain sight.

And the other side: if somebody tells you one true thing this week, that’s your whole job. Don’t argue. Don’t shrink it. Don’t make it about you. Ask a question. Say what you can do.

Where in your life is it safe to say what you’re actually afraid of?

And if you choose to share it, you may be surprised to learn that a lot of people are afraid of the same thing. And that kind of honest vulnerability is something we can all work from.

See you next Sunday where we’ll discuss my favorite meme, and the distinction of Optimized → Good Enough.

Gary

So here’s what this is. Once a week, on Sunday, I’m going to tell you one story from my week. Not a lesson — a story. About a hike, or a soccer game with the boys I coach, or a trip to the dentist, or a random conversation with a fellow human being. And at the end of each one, I’ll tell you the one thing it taught me: the distinction I’m carrying into the next week. That’s it. Ten minutes, maybe twelve.

Why stories? Because knowing something and living it are two different things. I can tell you what I know in a sentence. What I’m living takes a story.

And why distinctions? A distinction is just this: two things that look the same until you see the difference. And once you see it, you can’t go back.

The one distinction everything else in my work comes from is adaptation to aliveness. An adaptation is what we all did to fit in. It’s where we went quiet when it hurt, the roles we learned to keep the peace, or how we shrunk ourselves to fit in. These adaptations were intelligent, and they worked magnificently — until they just became “this is who I am.” And that’s the problem. And that’s what nobody tells you.

Aliveness is the other thing: actually being in your own life while it’s happening, instead of watching it from one step back.

And rebellion, the way I mean it, is just the crossing from adaptation into aliveness. It’s not against anybody. It’s just noticing the adapting and choosing to come alive instead. That’s my new book, Reimagining Rebellion, in a nutshell. And it’s what every story here is going to be about: one small place I caught myself adapting, what it took to cross, and what was on the other side.

So why do I use the term “ordinary week”? Because that’s where it all happens. Nobody comes alive at the retreat, or the leadership seminar, or even listening to this podcast or reading the book. People come alive when they take what they saw there back into their own life and live it. That’s what the podcast and the book are built for: to help you see where, in your own life, the adapting is costing you, and to choose to come alive instead. And that can only happen in real life — on a Tuesday, in a parking lot, or in a conversation, when something ordinary catches you off guard.

So that’s the deal. You can listen here, or on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube, and the written version comes to your inbox every Sunday.

The first one will be next Sunday, and it will be about what a trip to the dentist taught me about safety. The distinction is from hiding to vulnerability. Next week, I’ll tell you what I mean by that.

I hope to see you there.

Gary

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Day 14 of Reimagining Aliveness — a daily question for coming back to life.

Mary Oliver once wrote that attention is the beginning of devotion. She spent nearly every morning of her life walking — notebook in her pocket, eyes open. Not to escape the world, but to make full contact with it. She built an entire life’s work out of simply refusing to look away.

Meanwhile, we live inside an economy engineered to harvest our attention — to slice it thin and sell it off before we notice it’s gone. We’ve learned to treat attention as something we spend. Oliver treated it as a form of love. When you truly attend to something — a bird at the feeder, the tree you pass every day, the person across the table — it stops being background. It becomes alive to you, and something in you comes alive in return. The world isn’t withholding wonder. Most days, we’re the ones withholding attention.

Today’s question: What in your ordinary world is quietly asking to be loved by your attention?

Carry it with you today — then come share your answer. The conversation’s happening in the Rebel’s Playground:

👉 https://playground.rebellionreimagined.com

Reimagining Aliveness is a free daily series — one short reflection, one honest question, five days a week — walking the path from coming alive to being alive. New every weekday.

From Gary Lougher, trauma recovery coach and author of the forthcoming book Reimagining Rebellion (2nd Ascent Coaching, LLC).

#ReimaginingAliveness #MaryOliver #Attention #Presence #Aliveness #RebellionReimagined #DailyReflection

Day 13 of Reimagining Aliveness — a daily question for coming back to life.

Yuval Noah Harari reminds us that human beings don’t simply live in the world — we live inside stories about the world. Money, borders, careers — none of them exist the way a river exists. They’re stories, powerful only because we keep believing them together.

And here’s where it turns personal: your identity is a story too. Some of it you authored. A surprising amount was handed to you — who you are, what you’re capable of, what someone like you is allowed to want. A story that once protected you can quietly become the walls you live inside. You can’t step out of story altogether — humans are meaning-makers to the bone. But the moment you see a story as a story, it loosens its grip — and you get a say in what gets written next.

Today’s question: What story are you still living that no longer serves who you’re becoming?

Carry it with you today — then come share your answer. The conversation’s happening in the Rebel’s Playground:

👉 https://playground.rebellionreimagined.com

Reimagining Aliveness is a free daily series — one short reflection, one honest question, five days a week — walking the path from coming alive to being alive. New every weekday.

From Gary Lougher, trauma recovery coach and author of the forthcoming book Reimagining Rebellion (2nd Ascent Coaching, LLC).

#ReimaginingAliveness #Harari #Stories #Identity #Aliveness #RebellionReimagined #DailyReflection