One night I tried to join a Facebook group called Fuck the Patriarchy.
I know.
The group photo was Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes standing together, fists raised, and I thought, yes, let’s join.
Then came the membership questions.
Do you reject racism, misogyny, transphobia? Yes, yes, and yes, easy.
Then: do you reject all beauty standards embedded in the patriarchy?
I paused.
I am 44 years old. I dye my hair because I’m not ready to let the gray flow yet. I loved my hair extensions and gave them up when I turned 40, not because anyone told me to, but because I was ready. I get a little Botox. I love to exercise, and I have, on more than one occasion, called myself vain, while also knowing that I genuinely feel better in my body when I move it. Maybe that’s patriarchal conditioning. Maybe it’s just being human. Probably it’s both, and I’m not convinced the line between those two things is as clean as the question implied.
So I left it blank.
The next question was similar, another one where my honest answer lived stubbornly in the gray. It was late, I wanted to go to bed, so I closed the window.
I woke up to this:
Declined.
I got rejected by Fuck the Patriarchy.
I sat with that for approximately thirty seconds before I started cackling, because honestly, of course I did. It was probably an AI automation, but that didn’t change the truth: I have been too something for every box I’ve ever tried to fit into.
A black belt who trained for years and still got trolled for it. Not liberal enough: I never got a covid vaccine, and at the time I didn’t even realize it was a political choice. A psychic with too many boundaries who wasn’t love and light enough. And now, apparently, not the right kind of feminist. 😅
I looped it all together on my morning dog walk, and here’s what came through…
Two of the six Illusions of Relationship™ I teach, the Illusion of Perfection and the Illusion of Absorption, were both alive and well in that Facebook group at eleven o’clock on a Thursday night. One was in me. The other was in the group.
The Illusion of Perfection is the one most of us recognize in ourselves first. It’s the belief that belonging requires flawlessness. To be accepted into a community, a movement, a relationship, a family, you must check every box, embody every value perfectly, and leave no gray area unexplained.
I felt it in that pause. Before I’d even finished reading the question, I was already measuring myself against someone else’s definition of correct. Does the hair dye disqualify me? The Botox? Should I just say yes and sort it out later?
A younger version of me might have typed the “right” answer just to get in.
This time, it honestly wasn’t that deep. It was late, and I thought, I’ll think about it tomorrow. But even half-asleep, I knew I didn’t fit neatly into those boxes, and I wasn’t going to pretend I did.
That’s the medicine for the Illusion of Perfection. Not becoming flawless. Not people-pleasing your way into belonging. Not bending your truth to fit someone else’s form. Just being who you are and trusting that the right places will have room for you.
That was my side of the story. But the rejection that landed in my inbox the next morning showed me the other side.
The Illusion of Absorption is quieter, and really, it’s the one that catches smart people.
It’s what happens when we get so absorbed in what we know works that we stop feeling our way forward. We’ve done the reading. We’ve done the work. We know the right answers. And somewhere along the way, we disconnect from our heart and stop taking risks, because the system we’ve built feels safer than the unknown.
Absorption loves a rigid yes-or-no. It can’t see the gray, or the whole spectrum of what’s possible, because gray asks us to stay open, and open feels risky. So we default to the checklist. We shrink ourselves to fit it, or we shrink other people to fit it.
And here’s the cost: when we can only see yes or no, we miss the illusion-breaking opportunity standing right in front of us.
That group had one in front of them at eleven o’clock on a Thursday night. A 44-year-old feminist who dyes her hair and left a question blank because she was telling the truth. A real conversation was available right there, about beauty, choice, conditioning, and being human. The system couldn’t see it, so it said no.
I don’t say that with anger. I say it because I recognize it. I’ve been there too, so sure of what works that I missed the door opening right beside me.
Here’s what I want you to sit with.
Where in your life are you performing perfection in order to belong? Where are you filling in the “right” answer when your honest one lives is not as simple as a yes or no?
And where have you become so absorbed in what you know works that you’ve stopped taking heart-led risks? Where has a rigid yes or no kept you from seeing the opportunity that’s right in front of you?
The Illusions of Relationship™ don’t only live in our romantic partnerships or our families. They live in our movements, our spiritual circles, and our Facebook groups at eleven o’clock at night. They live anywhere humans gather around a shared identity and then slowly start to mistake the identity for the truth.
That group couldn’t see the gray. The Clarity Portal is where we practice seeing it every week, before an illusion costs you a relationship or another year of your life. You get my weekly psychic transmission with an animal kingdom check-in nobody else offers, plus a daily psychic minute for the days Junior grabs the radio. $55 a month, cancel whenever you want.
Step into the Clarity Portal: https://laurenkaywyatt.com/clarity-portal/
I’ll keep naming the patterns as I see them. That’s what an illusion dismantler does.
With Love and Wisdom,
Lauren
Black Belt Mystic | Psychic Healer for Humans + Animals
P.S. Every group is running a checklist it doesn’t know about, and the first quarter moon is when you find out whether your new moon choices hold up against it. That’s what we’re getting into at Temple Steps, my free live gathering, on Monday, October 19 at 6 pm CT / 4 pm PT / 7 pm ET: a transmission, then a collective reading with card pulls.
Confession: I’ve never done a Temple Steps on a Monday, and part of me wanted to stick with the usual night because that’s how it’s always been done. Which is the whole point of this email. Come watch me practice what I teach.
Join me live wherever you like to watch:
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