Golden: The Soundtrack to Breaking Free

Spotify Wrapped told me something I was surprised to learn: my most-played song of 2025 was "Golden" by HUNTR/X.

38 plays in just two months.

I'm 43 years old. I had barely heard of KPop before a coworker mentioned KPop Demon Hunters one morning in a team meeting. And yet this song, performed by an all-female group, sung in English and Korean, with a sound that's equal parts defiant and jubilant became the soundtrack to one of the most transformative periods of my life.

It's not hard to understand why.

The Context

2025 a year of deep change.

I became more fully committed to my position regarding the Mormon church after over forty years as a member-though I've been inactive for the majority of the last 10 years. I started therapy to try to address some issues I was having around a pattern of isolation and self-neglect. I wanted another sounding board to talk about my feelings about the church. I wrote a personal manifesto declaring who I am on my own terms. I started this blog and decided to stop being quiet about what I've learned.

I'm done hiding. I'm working on shining.

And "Golden" became the anthem for that work.

"I Was a Ghost, I Was Alone"

The song opens with this line, and it hits immediately.

For most of my life, I've felt invisible. Not in the sense of being ignored. I was often noticed, often praised for being helpful, kind, reliable. But the real me? The person underneath the performance? That person was a ghost.

I built what I've come to think of as a "frosted glass dome" around myself. Others could see my vague shape through it. They could sense I was there. I could see their outlines too. But there was no real visibility, no genuine connection. I was present but not seen. Alone in a crowd.

The loneliness has become unbearable lately. As I've started dismantling that dome, as I've begun letting people see the real me, I've realized how long I've been starving for actual connection. The kind where someone sees you, not the version you've performed into existence.

"I was a ghost, I was alone."

Yes. For a long, long time. And I'm tired of it.

"I Lived Two Lives, Tried to Play Both Sides"

This might be the line that resonates most deeply.

Nearly twenty years ago, when I was 24 and still a faithful Mormon, I wrote a poem called "Two Faces." In it, I described looking in the mirror and seeing two versions of myself: the man I wanted to be (devoted to God, joyful, compassionate) and the man I despised (the one with "evil in the smiling eyes," who mocked my repentance, who grew stronger despite my best efforts).

I lived two lives. The public one: returned missionary, seminary graduate, Institute student, aspiring to temple marriage and an eternal family. And the private one: struggling with normal human feelings that the church had labeled as spiritual death, fighting shame that never resolved, feeling broken in ways I didn't have the language to name.

I tried to play both sides. Tried to be the good Mormon while also being human. Tried to suppress the parts of me that didn't fit while presenting the parts that did.

"But I couldn't find my own place."

Exactly. Because there was no place for the whole me in that framework. The only way to belong was to amputate parts of myself and pretend they didn't exist.

I spent decades trying to find my place while carrying the unacknowledged possibility that I never would.

"Called a Problem Child 'Cause I Got Too Wild"

In Mormon culture, being "too wild" doesn't require much.

Doubt? Too wild.
Questions? Too wild.
Normal sexual feelings? Definitely too wild.

I was labeled problematic not for doing objectively harmful things, but for expressing normal human experiences. For having questions that didn't have satisfying answers. For struggling with shame that the church installed and then blamed me for carrying.

The framework was clear: if you're struggling, it's because you're not trying hard enough, not praying sincerely enough, not repenting completely enough. The problem is always you, never the system that's making impossible demands.

So you become the problem child. Not because you're broken, but because you're only human and won't coform to the mold.

"I'm Done Hidin', Now I'm Shinin' Like I'm Born to Be"

This is the declaration. The thesis. The line I needed to hear.

I've spent 2025 beginning to do the work of not hiding:

Writing a personal manifesto that declares who I am without requiring permission from any institution or ideology.

Blogging authentically about my deconstruction journey, even when it's uncomfortable.

Being vulnerable in therapy in ways I've never been before: naming the emotional neglect, examining Nice Guy patterns, confronting the counter-dependency that kept me isolated for years.

Letting people see the real me, even when it feels terrifying.

That's what "shining like I'm born to be" looks like for me. Not performing perfection. Not hiding the parts that don't fit someone else's ideal. Just existing as I actually am and trusting that's enough.

It's still hard. Some days I want to retreat back into the dome, back into invisibility, back into the safety of not being seen. But I'm learning that safety isn't the same as thriving. And I'm done prioritizing safety over authenticity.

"Waited So Long to Break These Walls Down"

43 years.

That's how long I've been waiting.

Waiting to feel like I truly belonged. Waiting to be truly seen. Waiting for permission to exist as I am. Waiting for the shame to lift. Waiting for someone else to validate me so I could finally validate myself.

The walls weren't protection. They were a prison. And I built them myself because I was taught-directly and indirectly-that's what safety looked like.

Breaking them down isn't a single moment. It's a process. Therapy, writing, blogging, connecting with people who see me and don't require me to be someone else. Each of these is a brick removed, a crack widened, a section demolished.

"To wake up and feel like me."

That's the goal. To wake up and not immediately start performing. To exist without the constant calculation of "what does this person need me to be?" To feel like the person I am is the person I'm allowed to be.

I'm not there yet. But I'm moving in the right direction.

"Put These Patterns All in the Past Now"

The patterns are what kept me trapped:

The Nice Guy pattern of giving endlessly to others while neglecting myself, hoping that if I proved myself worthy enough through service, I'd finally earn the love I was starving for.

The shame cycle that made me believe I was fundamentally broken, that my struggles were evidence of moral failure, that if I just tried harder I could finally be the person I was supposed to be. That if I repented enough, I wouldn't carry the stink of my supposed proclivities.

The counter-dependency that kept me isolated, convincing myself I didn't need anyone, that vulnerability was weakness, that asking for help was failure.

These patterns were adaptive once. They helped me survive a high-control religious environment that demanded performance and punished authenticity. But they're not serving me anymore. They were keeping me trapped in a cage that no longer even exists.

Putting them in the past isn't easy. They're deeply grooved, reinforced by decades of repetition. But I'm learning to recognize them, interrupt them, choose differently.

That's the work. That's what "breaking free" actually looks like.

The Metaphor: From Dome to Walls with Gates

I've been thinking a lot about what healthy boundaries look like.

The frosted glass dome was total isolation disguised as presence. I was technically there, technically interacting, but no one could really see me and I couldn't really see them.

Now I'm working on building stone walls with gates instead.

The walls protect. They establish boundaries, create space for me to exist without constant invasion. But they have gates—entry points I control, places where I can choose to open and let people in. Or choose not to, depending on whether they've proven themselves safe.

It's not isolation. It's intentional connection. And it requires discernment: learning to tell the difference between people who want to know me and people who want to use me.

"Golden" is about breaking down the walls that imprison. But it's also, implicitly, about building the ones that protect. The difference is agency. The dome was unconscious, desperate, fearful. The walls with gates are chosen, deliberate, grounded in self-knowledge.

I'm learning to be both visible and boundaried. Both authentic and protected. Both open and discerning.

It's a balance I'm still figuring out.

Why This Song, Why Now

"Golden" became the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. It's getting over 30 million streams per week. HUNTR/X is the first all-female K-Pop group to achieve this level of mainstream success.

This one song, as of the time of this writing, has been streamed over 1.1 billion times.

I'm not alone in connecting with this muisc, these lyrics.

Millions, perhaps billions, of people are resonating with this message of being done hiding, of breaking down walls, of shining despite being labeled a problem. That's not a coincidence. That's a cultural moment.

We're collectively exhausted by the performance. By the constant code-switching. By the demand that we make ourselves smaller to fit into spaces that were never designed for our full selves.

And we're done.

The fact that this anthem is being delivered by an all-female K-Pop group matters too. These are artists breaking barriers in an industry that historically excluded them. They're claiming space, demanding visibility, refusing to be diminished.

That connects directly to my values around autonomy and self-expression. One of the core tenets of my personal manifesto is that individual autonomy naturally extends to all people regardless of gender identity or expression. My fight for the right to exist as I am isn't separate from anyone else's fight for the same thing. We're all entitled to shine.

HUNTR/X is shining. And in doing so, they're giving permission to everyone listening to do the same.

Music as Emotional Processing

I've played "Golden" 38 times in two months because I need to hear it.

Not because I forget the lyrics. Not because I'm trying to memorize it. But because the message is still sinking in. Because I'm still learning to believe it. Because some days I need the reminder that I'm done hiding, even when hiding feels safer. Some days it makes me want to dance around my living room. And some days it makes me cry.

Music does something that other forms of processing can't. It bypasses the analytical mind and speaks directly to the emotional core. It helps me leave the left side of my brain and exist in the right. I know that technically, there is no left/vs right brain divide, but the metaphor is useful. Music helps me feel what I know intellectually but haven't fully integrated yet.

I can read a hundred books about shame and healing. I can talk through the patterns in therapy. I can write blog posts deconstructing the framework that trapped me.

But sometimes I just need to hear someone sing "I'm done hidin', now I'm shinin' like I'm born to be" and let that truth wash over me until it starts to feel real.

That's what "Golden" has been for me this year. Not just a song, but a companion through one of the hardest and most necessary transformations of my life.

The Soundtrack to What Comes Next

I don't know what 2026 will bring. I'm still excavating, still learning, still figuring out who I am outside the framework that defined me for 43 years.

But I know I'm done hiding.

I know I'm building walls with gates instead of frosted glass domes.

I know that being seen is terrifying but necessary.

And I know that when I need a reminder of why I'm doing this work, I can press play on a K-Pop song by an all-female group and hear the anthem I needed someone to sing.

"Waited so long to break these walls down / To wake up and feel like me."

I'm awake. I'm feeling like me. And I'm becoming.

And that feels golden.