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Transcript11 lines
- [00:01]
A
Morning decisions. How about a creamy mocha Frappuccino drink? Or sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe? Or a white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries.
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B
Hear that? That's now crispy and McCrispy strips meeting creamy Caesar sauce sounds extra Crispy caesar sauce at McDonald's for a limited time. Ba da ba ba ba.
- [00:31]
C
I've been really meditating on but naturally just feels good. What does what? What naturally feels good for us. And can we lean more into that now? Sometimes what naturally feels good doesn't feel easy, right? Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. But I do believe there's a natural shape to you. You know, the way water has a natural shape, the way a tree grows towards light without being which way is up. And we all feel an incline towards a certain way of being. You know, when I was younger, I. I really didn't resonate with like a 9 to 5. Not because it was inherently wrong, but it just did not simply align for me. I'm like, I can't really imagine my life this way with only a two week vacation. You know, every single one of us likes a certain kind of music. And maybe you can't even explain why I love reggae, but I actually don't like reggaeton or soca and it's all in the Caribbean. It's just not my vibe. Even though it's like insanely popular. We all have natural, natural inclinations. And the deeper we lean into them, the more aligned and whole we feel and the more our life starts to make sense because we are living authentically. Authenticity. What a buzzword. What a word that gets thrown around all day, every day. And I think it really gets rinsed out on social media. But somewhere along the way, many of us have learned to operate as something else. Something maybe we thought people wanted something to fit in or we just step into a template that works for some or a box that society has handed us. But this exhausts the human spirit if we are not careful. The body knows the difference between an exhaustion that comes from effort and an exhaustion that comes from performance. You know, one of them you can actually rest and sleep off and feel energized again. But the other one, that one lingers, that one settles into your bones like it's planning to live there. That one has perpetual burnout. And it's all about authenticity, you know, or the lack of it. And again, I don't really mean the aesthetic version of authenticity we see online because everyone Talks about it, you know, what you wear, how you express yourself on camera, all of that. And you can be authentic in, like, the way you present yourself to the world and your art or your expression, but offline, living a very inauthentic life in many different ways. Inauthenticity shows up a lot in relationships, in the conversations we're having sometimes with the people around us. And this is where a lot of us start to play roles we don't even agree with. We. We stepped into them many, many, many, many years ago. You know what I mean? You know, lately I just been tuning into different conversations or having different conversations and talking to people. I was talking to one friend who said that he genuinely wants a partner, that he feels like it's kind of. They. They're just both inputting into their dreams, but he kind of feels like bombarded with, like, the. The conversation online of 50 50, you know, and that a man is supposed to, you know, take care of things 100%, and that's what defines your masculinity. But he just doesn't identify with that, you know, especially in this economy. And I was telling him, I'm like, bro, you don't have to do that. Just don't date somebody that wants that. Find somebody that aligns for you. Be authentic to what you want in life. You know, same thing goes maybe for somebody else. You know, many women get stuck in roles they never chose, that they don't even believe anymore, performing a version of themselves that was handed to them by family, by culture, by whatever version a good woman is supposed to be, and that can exhaust you. That's the part that's depleting people, is living inauthentic lives. Templates that were handed to us. Now maybe the template works. And that's amazing, because to be honest, if we can adopt a blueprint that's already been tested and proven, and it also works for us, great. It saves us so much time. But unfortunately, some templates just don't work for us. Like when I realized I didn't want a 9 to 5 a very long time ago, I had to go down an unpaved path full of weeds. I had to whack those weeds out the way and, you know, carve my own way until something felt right. And that's simply what it takes to live a more authentic life, is honesty. Honesty of how do I want to live my life? And in our relationships, honesty, communication in a relationship where you can't even say out loud, you know, your desires or, you know, what is upsetting you, you will go into silence, you will keep quiet, and you will keep shrinking yourself. And this is a problem. Imagine committing your whole life to a partnership that you don't even agree with the structure, playing a role that doesn't even make sense for you. But maybe you're just afraid to be alone or, you know, to be a rebel, you know, carving your own way. But unfortunately, it's deeply inauthentic if it does not align for you and will affect your life. And the love we have for ourselves. It's actually very hard to love ourselves when we are low key, disgusted with some of our actions or the way that we are living. You know, self love is not just giving ourselves affirmations every morning, but self love is also trying to live a life that truly feels right for us. So many of us tried to fit ourselves into templates that just weren't ours, Templates that got handed down from whatever version of success we were chasing, maybe even at just 19 years old. But we're older now, we're wiser now. We've changed, Our mindset has changed. And that's the thing. We're always evolving. What was authentic to you five years ago might not be authentic to you today. Our old ways may not serve us in this new space. That's why reinvention and auditing ourselves is always necessary. And I believe with relationships, the same thing, the person you commit to today most likely may not be the same person in five years. So how can you two grow together and evolve and mold and reshape your lives? Maybe every weekend you spent the weekend, you know, doing your grocery shopping and, you know, watching movies. But one person has a career change, and now their weekends are no more available. Things had to change. Now they travel out of town a little bit more. Things have to change. Is this aligned? Is this in alignment for both of you? Maybe, maybe not. But authenticity is something that we're constantly in participation with. Authenticity is not a switch. It's not a decision you make on a Tuesday and then you're done. Anybody who says, hey, be up, just be authentic, I mean, they're probably trying to sell something because it's a practice, something that, you know, takes a lifetime, really. And we're going to weave in and out of authenticity. Some days you're fully present, fully yourself. Other days you're not. And both of those days, both of them, you know, they belong to the same life. It's not perfection we're after. Chasing perfect authenticity is just another box, another way to fail. Another template. And I also don't think authenticity needs to be the version where you just release every thought, every feeling onto the world. You know, I'm somebody that actually values discernment and values thinking things through before maybe I express them. I'm also somebody that values privacy. Even though I have large social media followings, I built these followings, yet most people don't even know my first name, my age, my daughter's name, or any real details about any of my family. I have shared some personal things, but I thought about that and it was an alignment for me to share. For me, keeping a somewhat private life is something I value. So that is authentic. If I don't share my all my views on the Internet or my political views on the Internet, that's not being inauthentic for me, that's actually being authentic because my. I value constructive conversations. So if I'm going to talk about very, very, very difficult things, I prefer to do it face to face with people where we can see each other and hear each other's tone. For me, I'm just not the type of person that likes to stir the pot on the Internet because a lot of the times I can't get a constructive conversation about it. I'm a conversationalist. I like a back and forth. So the way I use my social media profiles is to bring a sense of calm, peace, a shift in perspective, you know, something nourishing that people can have in their day and that is deeply authentic. For me, it just means being honest with the way you want to live again. What we're talking about is progression, constant participation with our authenticity to showing up again and again, being a little bit more honest than you were yesterday, a little bit more willing to say the thing that you feel needs to be said, a little bit more willing to let the silence be uncomfortable instead of filling it with a version of yourself. That isn't true. But I really do think inauthenticity shows up in a lot of relationships because relationships require sometimes the most communication. You're dealing with two people or multiple people with different desires, views, emotions. Very difficult thing. Imagine being in a relationship where you actually get to see, say exactly what you feel, not what you're supposed to feel or what you're supposed to say, and the other person can handle it and can hear you. Imagine that. You know, that would be very freeing to be in a room where you're not performing, where you're not providing a version of yourself that you know will be accepted, a version of yourself that was edited for safety. Again, that alone might be one of the most freeing feelings for people. For me, if that type of safety is in a relationship, it actually brings me closer to somebody knowing I can express my views or my desires or my frustrations as an individual and as a person in that friendship or romantic relationship or family dynamic, whatever it may be. The people I most feel at home with are the ones who simply allow me to express myself authentically without punishment, but by conversation and the willingness to understand. And this can be very hard for many people because many people are possessive and controlling, and many people want to put people into a box to what fits for them. It's hard because most of us have been rewarded for the opposite too. We've been told that keeping the peace is noble, that fitting in is strategic. They're not rocking the boat is maturity. And sometimes this is actually 100 true. It just depends on the cost. Sometimes it doesn't. It's not worth it to rile up every pillow. Sometimes it's not worth it because, you know, the other person doesn't have the emotional capacity to even have that conversation. So the real question is, what does it cost? And if it's costing us our true authenticity, well, then that's where there's a problem. Because if you decide to keep the peace in a certain dynamic and you feel like that's exactly what you need to be doing, well, that's authentic. If you feel that is nurturing yourself and, you know, protecting yourself, that is beautiful. But other times it could be depleting you. So that's why authenticity is honesty. It requires a lot of questions. It requires back and forth conversating with ourselves again. Our old ways may not serve us in this new space. I'm sure every single one of us can look back five years ago and there's parts of ourselves we don't even recognize anymore because we have changed, we have evolved. Now think about our own self evolution and how we can look back and not recognize parts of ourselves. Now look at the people in our life. We would have to expect the same for them as well. You cannot put people in a box. This is why allowing, you know, people to unfold and become is a very beautiful thing and allows us to be authentic when we feel like we can become. If you're born in, like, a very religious household that has extreme judgment and you're struggling with your faith, you may struggle with that faith in silence. Actually, you may stop believing. But wouldn't it be beautiful if you could bring those doubts to Your family members, and they still love you. Maybe you completely fall out of faith and they still love you. Remember I had a discussion with a Jehovah Witness lady that came to my door. And I always enjoy talking to the Jehovah Witnesses. I find it's always very great conversations. But she was explaining to me how in their faith, she had to abandon her daughter, or she called it disciplining her daughter by cutting her off. So everybody in the family, everybody in the community cut her off because she fell out of faith. And then she said, well, four years later she came back and she's like, see, the discipline worked. And I'm like, maybe she only came back because she missed her family. Maybe she doesn't believe again. But maybe spending Christmas by herself, losing her brother, sister, father, mother, grandparents, cousins, losing the community she grew up with, maybe she calculated the cost for herself and she was like, I just want my family back. So she pretended. She pretended to believe. Now, I don't know, but, you know, this is a very real possibility. And I told her, I was like, there's nothing my daughter could believe and unbelieve that would make me cut her off. You know, my love. My love for her is just real. I wouldn't abandon her because she has a different faith than me or lack of faith. And that's why I feel like the people around us who create room for our authenticity is a. Is a beautiful thing. And you should keep those people close, the people who you don't feel like you have to constantly edit yourself because that means these people around us are life giving, giving life to us. And then we want to do the same thing back. Don't we want to give life to them as well? This is why discernment and being in tune with ourselves, in tune with our intuition is so key. You know, making time each week to sit with ourselves truly. You know, the other day I got, like, sick out of nowhere. Like, I was really good. I was really productive. I set, like a new tone and frequency I wanted to be on and had an amazing day. And then the next day, I don't know where I got sick. And the weird thing is, anytime I decide I'm just going to start locking intensely in, I get sick, like the next day. And then I said, this is so weird. There must be something I'm missing right now, because it's almost like my body is stopping me. And I'm like, maybe I'm not listening into my. To my intuition. And that day I just committed to kind of being in silence. Like, no music, you know, no listening to YouTube videos, no, nothing really. I just sat in my chair drinking tea and after about like 90 minutes, I'm like, I don't remember the last time. I was like incomplete silence like this, just no stimulation, just being. It was nice. And then I realized, how much time have you actually, you know, been spending with the most high with God? You know, making time each week to truly just sit with ourselves, to filter through our thoughts and emotions and to simply just be and witness our own becoming. Asking questions like, what is true? What did I adopt this week in my mind? Is it true for me? Am I living authentically? Did I feel pressure to say something? Did I feel pressure to be somebody else? What did I enjoy? What felt right? It's important that we take note of all these things because authenticity actually is really, really, really important to live an authentic, aligned life. Why else would we want to live any other way? Oh my God, the misery. You know, one of my biggest fears is to being, to be in an unhappy relationship. I feel like I've seen so many like people who have been in relationships and it's almost like they just resent each other and hate each other. And I was telling someone the other day, I'm like, the thing I would hate most is to be in a relationship with somebody and we just don't love each other, but we just co habitat. Why would I do that? That's like one of my biggest fears in life. It's like actually if we're together, I just want to be in love. Obviously there's going to be hard times, but you know, willing to work through those, but never want to reach that space where you're just with somebody and you both resent each other and hate each other. You know, everybody has seen like those unhappy marriages where there's no love there anymore. A lot of people just settle. They just settle for a life that, you know, they've already built and it's not aligned anymore, authentic anymore. But they don't realize that it's very depleting now. I'm not saying as soon as you're not happy, you need to shake up your whole life. No, this is where discernment comes in, right? This is where the meditation of our own mind and thoughts come in. And just checking in with ourselves and auditing our lives. I'm definitely not the person that's just gonna completely just unravel my life right away. I think about things, you know, I meditate on things. But asking questions is super key. Our old Ways may not serve us in this new space. Asking what makes me feel alive? Not just more successful or more impressive, but what makes me feel alive? There's a difference. Some conversations leave you energized, while some don't. Some meetings drain you in 15 minutes. Then you have to ask yourself, do I want. Do I want to live a life where I. I'm doing seven, eight meetings a day? Or maybe consulting people gives you life, so that is something you want to do all day. Some people feel like home. Some people feel like you're wearing shoes that don't fit you understand? I remember this one person in my past. For some reason, anytime we hung out, I would feel com. I'd feel very drained. We could be doing nothing, but I'd feel so drained, I didn't. Then I realized I'm like, you were not supposed to be there. You know what I mean? The body is constantly giving us information long before sometimes the mind catches up. You know, we spend so much of our lives trying to think our way into the right life when our nervous system has been whispering the answer the entire time. This is why it's important that we take that time. We sit with ourselves. Pay attention to what expands you and pay attention to what depletes you. Not every uncomfortable thing is wrong. No. Growth will stretch you. Discipline will challenge you, and love will ask of things for you. Right? Even a relationship's not going to be all fairies and roses. Relationships are responsibilities. When you sign up for, like, let's say, a romantic relationship, a committed one, you both are basically saying, hey, I'm going to take the responsibility to love you and the ways that you need to be loved and vice versa. That's a. That's a really big responsibility. And sometimes that's not going to be comfortable because you have to learn about a person. You have to go outside your comfort zone. You have to learn how to express certain love languages that they really need, or else the thing's not going to work. But there is a different feeling when you're abandoning yourself, and I think we all know it. There is, like a heaviness and a subtle resentment.
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B
You will.
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C
You will. You will start to notice. For some reason, you just don't like yourself as much anymore. You're starting to resent yourself, almost getting sick of yourself. That's a difficult feeling. That's something that needs to be noticed. You have a feeling that you're slowly disappearing. Your light is dimming, even if everyone around you is applauding the version of you. And I've actually been through that. I've been in a season before where everybody is applauding me. But I have subtle resentment for myself because I know I'm not being authentic in certain parts of my life. And it will slowly, slowly, slowly erode you, your confidence and your self love. It's a very dangerous place to stay because eventually you stop hearing yourself. Now you're just like on a manufacturing line performing something else. And what do I always say? We might as well be ourselves. Undeniably. So the ones that love us can come closer and the ones that don't, well, they can go somewhere else. There are seasons where the next step isn't more information, more honesty. Maybe the reason you're confused isn't because life is complicated. Maybe you've simply been living too far away from yourself. Too far away from yourself. But the beautiful thing is nothing authentic is truly ever lost. It could be buried, yes. Ignored, for sure. Forgotten, yeah, maybe. But lost, no. We can always chip away the stone and unfold and watch the magic of us come alive again. And I think the parts of us that have been buried are always waiting for us to remember and have the courage to stop pretending and stop being someone that we're not. Little by little, we just practice honesty, radical honesty and communication with ourselves and others so we can form the right communities, the right relationships with the world and ourselves. Your life begins to take on the same shape as your spirit becomes beautiful. And just like water, just like the trees reaching toward the light start to happen. It starts to happen without force, without performance starts to happen simply by being you. Of following what has always been true and you done know in hindsight, everything is going to be more than all right. I want to post more podcasts, I really do. So something that would motivate me and inspire me is like when people do share it in their Instagram stories, I'm always like, okay, people are tuning in and your comments on Spotify really help. So if you want to help me get this momentum going. Yeah, sharing in your stories. If you resonated with the episode and
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D
leave a comment, close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today.
- [23:29]
E
Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast.
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D
And breathe.
- [23:38]
E
Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste.
- [23:46]
C
Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.
- [23:50]
F
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