Podcast Ep. 161: The Secret Sauce of Being You Is The Remedy For Life’s Challenges

As I prepared to give a talk last week at a business conference on How To Be More You In Your Content, it hit me that I’ve remedied everything I’ve ever struggled with by being more me. In this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I share how recognising that my relationship with Instagram brought out the pleaser, perfectionist and overthinker in me led me to embark on an experiment in doubling down into being myself.

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Some nuggets from the episode

• Every time I’ve felt lost; each time I’ve not known what to do, or I’ve been in a situation that sucked; every time I’ve been unhappy with myself or something I’m doing; every time I’ve not liked a persistent feeling, the answer to it has always been being more me. These experiences represented where I could evolve in some way to be more of who I am. Or they highlighted where I’d gone off track and needed to return to what’s true for me. 
• Shady folk who conduct themselves as they do because they don’t value character, don’t give a hoot when they’re off-base or when someone else is suffering as a result of their actions. The situation doesn’t feel wrong to them. It does, to us! That’s information about who we are — our values.
• When we take steps, and so we say no, have a go at self-care, try new things, we stumble into who we are along the way. 
• Each time I notice that I’m experiencing a pattern of resistance, paralysis, self-doubt, people-pleasing, perfectionism or overthinking, I recognise it as a call to evolve in some way. 

We’re in relationship with everything, not just people. Alcohol, food, exercise, social media, consumption, money, our work, our health, and the list goes on.

• When our relationship with something is harmonious and it doesn’t feel restrictive or resistant, and instead it’s fluid and allowing us to be more us, this is letting us know that we’re being us. If it doesn’t feel this way, and for instance, we’re moving away from our values, there’s a dependency. When we don’t like who we are around the thing, it’s a clue that the relationship isn’t healthy. Or, it’s certainly notcongruent with who we are or want to be.
• Being yourself is who you would be if you weren’t listening to all of the rules (the should, shouldn’ts, musts, must nots, and have-to’s). It’s who we’d be if we weren’t trying to avoid being too much this or too little that.
• The times when we need to be ourselves the most are precisely the times we are most likely to avoid doing so.

Legacy criticisms are old and unquestioned criticisms that still affect us today. We use them to deter us from being us and trying out new things.

• Secret sauce: the things that make you, you. It combines our values (core and secondary) with our experience, experiences, talent, voice, creativity, personality, etc.
• How do you reconnect with who you are?Write down your rules for your life. Who do you think you have to be? I should/shouldn’t/must/mustn’t/have to.
• Undoubtedly, there are ‘best practices’, but we still need to figure out our version. Our best practices won’t necessarily look like someone else’s, and this is OK.
• If at the end of the day, we end up enjoying being more us, doing what we’re doing because we’re doing it in a way that feels more true to us, that is the way to go.

Sometimes what stops you from being more you, being yourself and authentic, is having a fixed outcome in mind.

• Try the things that your inner critic says that you shouldn’t. We have to experiment and find out what’s true for us. How did we feel when we were doing it? Did we like doing it?
• A sauce has three components: base, thickening agent and flavour. Cut out more than one or go too heavy or too little on something, and the sauce is lumpy, watery, flavourless — you get the gist! Same thing happens when you keep erasing you to be someone you’re not.
• When we connect with our inner child in a positive way, we return to somebody that we’d forgotten we were allowed to be.

Links mentioned

• The episodes after I lost my father: episode 80 and episode 81
• The Growth of Grief (ep. 133)
• I spoke at #2020 Sorted, but #2021 Sorted is already in the works

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Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com and if there’s a topic you’d love me to talk about, let me know!

Nat xxx

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