How we adapt to pressure, mistake it for identity, and forget what freedom feels like.
I always knew the snake was necessary.
I just never thought I would love it.
For most of my life, the snake represented the thing I feared most: change. Not the exciting kind. Not the kind that comes with a promotion or a new house or a tropical vacation.
The real kind. The kind that takes something away. The kind that asks you to release a version of yourself before you know what comes next. The kind that whispers, quietly and persistently, that something is no longer working.
I hated that snake.
Not because I disagreed with it. The worst part was that I usually suspected it was right. The problem was that the snake never seemed to understand what it was asking. It would slither into my awareness and point toward something I was clinging to with both hands.
And then it would whisper the most infuriating thing imaginable.
It’s time.
No.
Absolutely not.
Because from where I was standing, letting go looked suspiciously like destruction. The snake called it release. I called it catastrophe.
So I did what most people do. I adapted. When something felt uncomfortable, I adjusted. When something felt heavy, I got stronger. When something felt wrong, I found a way to make it work.
That sounds admirable… and I was proud of myself… until I realized the dark side to adaptation.
Imagine wearing a glove every day for ten years. At first, you would feel it. A month later, you would barely notice it. A decade later, you might forget it was there at all. Now imagine the glove slowly shrinking. Not enough to alarm you… just enough to be irritating. Then uncomfortable… then tight. Then exhausting. Then painful. Year after year, it molds itself to every contour of your hand. Every wrinkle. Every scar. Every movement. Eventually, you stop thinking of it as a glove.
You think of it as your skin.
That is what the snake understands.
The snake knows something has become too small… long before you do. The snake notices the pressure before you can feel it. The snake sees the cracks before they appear. The snake knows the skin cannot come with you.
You, meanwhile, are still trying to stretch it. You become increasingly bewildered by your own reactions. Things upset you more than they should. Small disappointments become large ones. Ordinary frustrations feel strangely personal. You tell yourself you’re tired. You tell yourself you’re stressed. You tell yourself you just need a vacation. You tell yourself a lot of things.
Anything except the truth. The truth is that the skin is getting tighter.
And tighter.
And tighter.
Until one day the pressure becomes impossible to ignore. Not because you suddenly became wise. Because you ran out of room.
The snake did not force the shedding. The pressure did. That’s the revelation. I thought the snake was threatening me. I thought it was asking me to lose something. I thought it was trying to take something away. It wasn’t. It’s the warning that the tearing was already coming.
A birth works the same way. Nobody talks a baby into being born. Nobody persuades it and negotiating with labor is a losing battle. There comes a point when there is simply no room left to stay where you are.
And so the pressure builds. And builds. And builds.
Until what felt impossible becomes inevitable.
Then comes the rupture. The thing you swore you would never do but you can’t NOT anymore. The thing you avoided but you can’t stop thinking about. The thing you feared but suddenly, come what MAY! There is NO MORE DELAY.
And for a little while, it hurts exactly as much as you thought it would. Maybe more.
A few days pass.
This site made me a podcast episode! This is crazy. If you want to listen, check it out. Just know, it is NOT me and I did not direct it. But it is a hoot.
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