Mental toughness is a facade.

For most people, mental toughness means suppressing or learning to “control” their emotions and fears in order to achieve something other people find admirable. In other words, betray yourself in order to look good in the eyes of others.

No one has ever become mentally tough this way, but it’s a great way to appear mentally tough, for sure. Most people who consider themselves mentally tough are in reality simply closed up and cruel, both to themselves and others. They are often quite brittle deep down inside, but they have learned to hide it very well from everyone including themselves. The mask of mental toughness is part of their identity, but it’s still a mask.

True mental toughness comes from self-love. In this context it means allowing yourself your emotions and fear and never judging yourself for them. I don’t mean expressing them, necessarily, but allowing rather than suppressing - through accepting, admitting, to yourself and to others. Paradoxically, the path to absence of fear and sorrow isn’t around them but through them, and there is absolutely no shortcut.

If you’re afraid to be or appear fearful, you will never do anything. If you’re afraid to grieve or cry, you will never fall in love.

Following your heart in life, accepting your suffering and living it fully is what leads to mental toughness. Trying to appear brave and tough and avoiding your suffering leads to a fake, inauthentic persona.

If you follow your heart and accept your tears, one day you might discover that you have become fearless. Because life ends with death anyway, and nothing really matters except being true to yourself. It won’t matter to you what other people think of you and what they consider “tough”. You will then become truly mentally tough, but no one will be able to recognize your “toughness” because you will have absolutely nothing to prove.

This is the way to truly live.

The single toughest thing in life is breaking free from the judgment of others and accepting yourself for who you are.