The Version That Fits

I’m just walking home with a coffee, after watching a man fall off a paddle board like a seal in a suit - laughing (quietly, kindly) as the harbour echoes back. He makes a spectacularly loud sound. His kids are howling with laughter. He’s laughing too. It probably hurts, but he doesn’t seem to mind. There’s no performance in it, just the sound of a man who knows he’s allowed to fall and still belong.

Gets me thinking about the internal locus of evaluation - the concept of, well, being really centred and grounded and okay in yourself. The term internal locus of evaluation comes from Carl Rogers. He used it to describe something simple but radical: the ability to be your own reference point.

When you’re living from an external locus, you’re constantly checking - how it looks, how it lands, whether you’re doing it right. You measure yourself by reactions, approval, imagined eyes. An internal locus is different. It’s when you know what’s true because you feel it. In your body. In your timing. In the way something lands - not out there, but in here - no mask required.

Rogers saw it as a sign of psychological maturity. A return, really. Back to the self before all the performance. Before you learned how to contort to be loved. It’s not a fixed state at first - but once the internal reference is established, it holds; you know and others feel it in your presence too. Just like the man in the harbour - falling, laughing, not checking the crowd. Belonging anyway.

There’s no particular test for it.. - but you know when you’re there because you’re not scanning or narrating yourself. You’re not trying to land well. You’re just in.. your body - embodied. Saying the true thing without dressing it.. Laughing when something’s funny - even if no one else does.. Leaving the room when it’s wrong, or no longer fits - because your system says no. And this time, you’re close enough to yourself to hear the no, and trust it.

That’s it really - the internal locus. It’s not a mindset and it’s definitiely not performative. But it is a goal - a structural shift toward inner authority. And when it lands, there’s a kind of internal click. A recognition. Oh, I’m with me now.. And from there, everything else rearranges.

In many cases, it began early - in families, schools, institutions, and wider culture relaying clear signals about what is valued, who you should be, how you should present to be accepted, admired, loved. Certain ways of being were affirmed, mirrored, and welcomed. Others fell outside those parameters - were unrecognised, unreflected, unexceptable.. or systematically excluded. Over time, a person learns to shape-shift - to emphasise what brings connection and become a version that fits into the system around them.

That version might have been brilliant, polite, high-achieving, charming, happy, funny, invisible, beautiful, quiet. But not necessarily true.

And the work - the real work - is unlearning all that chameleon choreography and bit by bit, coming back into the body - the feeling - embodied. The process of moving from an external to an internal locus of evaluation is about coming back to a version of yourself that feels whole, right, aligned, true - coherent from the inside. So you’re no longer editing yourself to gain access, approval, or belonging. Not adjusting your shape to be acceptable. Living aligned with your own truth - being at home in yourself.

It’s not always easy - shifting from an external to internal locus of evaluation - it's a process and the work runs deep. But once that internal reference is in place, it holds and becomes who you are - because it is who you are. Rogers described this shift as a return to inner authority - one that involves confronting conditions of worth, inherited expectations and patterns of self-erasure. To start with there may only be glimpses along the way - brief flashes of alignment between inner truth and outward expression and then - once the centre is found, it doesn’t waver. It becomes foundational - the ground you move from.

Now you’re home. Not in someone else’s image of you. In yourself. Jung wrote of individuation as a return to the Self. Winnicott’s “true self” is felt as a place of aliveness and integration. Rogers saw congruence as a kind of internal homecoming - where self-perception and experience are no longer split - no longer hostage to an internal belief or self concept that you must meet others’ standards in order to be worthy of regard.

And from there, well everything that matters aligns.. Rogers proposed that when a person is congruent - meaning their internal experience, awareness, and outward expression are aligned - they move toward psychological well-being and their relationships begin to shift accordingly. He described a kind of natural reordering: when you’re authentic, the right connections deepen and the false ones fall away. You attract people and situations that resonate with your real self - not the adapted one.

Jung defined the same process 'synchronicity' - “a meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than probability is involved.” He linked this to individuation: when a person is psychologically aligned with the Self (capital S), the outer world begins to mirror the inner state - not causally, but symbolically - the outer event didn’t happen because of your inner state (cause and effect), but it matched your inner state in meaning or pattern (symbolic resonance).

In somatic work, being grounded in your body and connected between heart and mind supports coherence in your nervous system. That coherence is literally magnetic - it changes how people respond to you, how you respond to them and how clearly you can perceive what does or doesn’t align for you. It’s not mystical, but the effect often feels like a kind of grace: what’s true finds you.

It can sound woo woo - but the research is in (if you need it). Research from the HeartMath Institute has shown that during somatic coherence - identified by a smooth, sine-wave pattern in heart rate variability (HRV) - the heart and brain enter a synchronised state via the vagus nerve. In this state, participants demonstrate significantly improved reaction times, decision-making, and emotional stability (McCraty et al., 2001). Further studies show that when one person sustains this coherence, another person nearby may begin to mirror their HRV pattern (McCraty, Atkinson & Bradley, 2004), suggesting the presence of an energetic field effect.

So this idea of finding yourself - it isn’t just poetic. It’s structural. When you’re real, what’s meant to meet you, can.