Hey everyone, this is episode 61 of Let’s Talk dirty, and today we’re going to chat a little about being yourself. But beyond that, I think today’s episode is really going to help those of you who think you’re really clear on what you want and you’ve been saying that you want this thing for a while now and you’re still not getting it. What I’m talking about today might be one of the reasons.
So I’m using the example of “just be yourself” because that’s become a really popular phrase amongst my clients. Right I think I hear that from everyone I work with at least once, that part of the path to whatever they want is to just be themselves. Like, I ask women how they think they can be more confident. And they usually say something like “just be myself” and I know they are trying to say like I just need to exist and not make it a problem. Right? Like I need to just do me, do my thing, and not worry about what other people think. That would be how to be confident. By just being myself.
But I want you to think about what it feels like in your body to think I need to JUST be myself.
Or even if I told you, hey the solution to what you’re after is to JUST BE YOURSELF.
It’s a little bit frustrating.
For me, it feels like confusion and it feels a little bit like shame too.
Because I don’t really know what “be myself” means. Like ok, yeah is there a dictionary definition of that you can show me? AND the word “just” it makes it feel so light and flippant like it’s so simple and easy that I feel like a total loser for not knowing how to just do that.
I think this is some of the most worthless advice, albeit genuine and well intentioned that we like to give one another. Someone says oh I’m nervous about this date or I have a presentation and I am so self conscious. And we go “just be yourself!” Like I’ve said this to people in the past, oh just be yourself you’ve got this.
What the fuck does be yourself actually mean?
Do you know? Haha. Or when you really think about it, does it feel like a bandaid on a broken arm? Or as one of my clients put’s it, a paper sword held against a rabid tiger. Like that thought, in spite of it’s genuine effort, is not really helpful, and more often it’s frustrating, confusing and shame-inducing because we’re like yeah I’m trying to just do that, but nothing is changing and I should be able to JUST do this.
So, I became interested in really understanding the idea of “being yourself” in particular because I noticed that
JUST be yourself, for many of us that’s like saying you JUST need to solve this complicated Calculus equation. You JUST need to do this thing you’ve never done before, easy peasy! No problem. And we haven’t even taken the time to consider what being yourself might entail. If it was so easy to JUST do it, then I would likely not have very many clients because everyone would JUST be walking around confident as themselves, creating their lives by doing just that.
“Being yourself” to me involves a few pretty intricate and unique and likely pretty focused practices. This might not be a complete assessment what I’ll share with you, and it may not resonate with what you believe “being yourself” means, but I’m going to share what I have chosen to believe about being yourself thus far, and in doing so, demonstrate to you how to take what you think you JUST need to do, and break it down into things that are more actionable.
Ultimately that’s what this episode is about, taking the general and making it specific, to notice where you can actually move with purpose.
Firstly, I think being yourself involves the awareness of unconscious thought. The first step in self coaching work: awareness of thoughts running. Ok so that would be my first piece of “being myself”. Already, that is a kinda large undertaking that isn’t going to just be like oh I did that for an hour and now I’m being myself. Haha. Ok because the next part of this is dropping the self judgement about what you think. Learning to think about what you think in a nonjudgemental way. Judgement about you will never re-route you, that’s one of the lines from my poem I performed for you last time on the last episode and what that means is that when you notice yourself, notice how you’re creating your life with your thoughts, being mad at yourself or beating yourself up for thinking that way is going to lead to despair or agitation or self shame…none of those emotions are helpful in showing up as you are. So unlearning self judgement, that is likely a requirement for being yourself.
Next, you must learn to create validation for and value in the ways that you already ARE. Like, without changing anything about you, not “trying to be yourself” just looking at how you are, how you exist in the world right now, and legitimately self validate FOR being different than other people. Value yourself FOR how you look, what you think, say, how you act, what you do for work, who you choose to be in your life, like all the shit that you’ve thus far chosen to feel ashamed of. Or let someone else convince you to feel ashamed of. Basically, one of my paradigms of my Coaching program—adopting the belief that you don’t need to change anything to feel good.
Ok so then to be able to be yourself fully you’ve gotta be able to fail and be rejected and not use it as proof of your unworthiness or make it mean that you’re wrong. You can’t be yourself fully if every time someone says I don’t like you, I don’t want you, you’re fired, unfriended, unfollowed, you wallow in your own unworthiness. So this one is separating experiences from truths about your worth.
I also noticed that in order to be myself I have to know how to allow my own trauma responses or what we learn in Private Coaching as automatic nervous system responses to fully process through so that I’m not stuck in flight fight freeze fawn when I inevitably butt up against the opposing opinions of other humans. Basically, I have to have a well cared for nervous system. I can’t be myself if I’m eternally activated and just trying to escape from my own nervous system.
And, to be myself I have to learn and know my values, consciously. And I have to cultivate the bravery to live them.
So there’s all that. Does that sound like something you can “just” do?
Maybe some people can but I’m not one of them.
Being yourself is something that takes many of us years to master and remaster. As we grow and as we change we have to be willing to go through all of these preparations to be yourself, again and again. The more practiced we are the quicker and more skilled we become at dropping into being ourselves yes
But we have this thought and we offer this thought to others as if it’s as simple as putting on your socks. Like step one, get socks out of drawer, step two put sock on left foot. Step three put sock on right foot. Done! TADA! Just do that.
Being yourself is not like putting on your socks.
How unfair it is to put the shame of not “just” being yourself into your body. Its not fair to let your brain do that.
Don’t do it.
Don’t put yourself in the position to fail at something that you made seem like an energetic equivalent to putting on socks.
I’m not saying this to give you reasons to throw your hands up and say like never mind, that sounds like alot of work to figure out how to be myself, I’m saying it because it’s worth it to call on your brain to disclose the steps to you now.
It would be as if a kid said to you wow I am so interested in outer space I’d love to experience walking on the moon. And you said oh you just need to go there then.
The kids like oh,Ok, thanks for the info. I give up.
Of course the kid can grow up to become an astronaut and go to the moon but he’s never going to figure out how to pursue the dream of his lifetime, if he never has the change to recognize that there are alot of intricate AND tangible, doable steps he can start to complete before he can “just go there”.
What I’m offering to you here today is an opportunity to ask your brain to work better for you.
You’re like I am so interested in showing up authentically and meeting my soul mate and then you’re like ok yeah I just need to be your self, duh.
What the fuck? Your brain is like wow that was easy. She just bought that. I just told her to just be herself and she bought it, and now look at her, all confused and shit. Not knowing what the fuck that means.
And then it’s like uh oh here comes her Life Coach Hanna, about to ask a better question…
And I’m like ok great but how do you do that? HOW do you be yourself? What does that look like? What will you need to believe? What will you need to practice?
Your brains like UGGHHH ok ok ok fine.
And someone said to me the other day, it was one of my clients I love you so so much and she’s going to know it’s her when I say this haha but she goes. I just need to be cool. Just act cool.
And I was like okay fine but I wanna know what that means. And she was like I dunno just like act cool, and chill. I was like k well if it’s been difficult for you to do that in the past, how the hell is your brain and your body going to take that direction and come up with something acceptable to you with it? It doesn’t know what the fuck that means!
Or like, if someone says to me I want more intimacy, so I’ll just need to be more intimate. If it was that easy woman wouldn’t you be having sex all day every day by now?
I want to know the specifics about what that would look like because right now you’re not giving your brain any direction when you let it say “just be more intimate” or whatever other super general thing you wanna do. Be yourself. Be cool. Be more fun. Be more intimate. Be more creative. Be more confident. I know those sound specific to alot of you. You’re like yeah that’s what I do need to just do. I need to just put myself out there. I just need to be happy.
What is the first thing you might need to master WITHIN the larger picture of what you want?
That question will shake something loose.
Right because as I said at the beginning today, if you have been wanting something, in general, for a while and it doesn’t seem to be coming any closer to your reality, you need to ask what one thing must I do in order to prepare to have this.
For example.
In order to “just” be myself in social situations, I must prepare myself by practicing the feeling of embarrassment on purpose. Why is that a requirement of being myself? Well, if I know that I can feel embarrassed and survive, and beyond that, feel embarrassed and be okay with that feeling, and beyond that, welcome embarrassment because it’s literally just an emotion I get to feel as a human being herself, then I begin to set the stage for the ultimate performance of ME, being myself.
Right, so what else needs to be “set up” and moved around on the “stage” of your ultimate goal.
Think about that. If you’re like “I JUST want to have more positive conversations with my husband”
Right that’s one of those general ass things that I’d be like ok great what does that mean?
Having Positive Conversations with My Husband is the name of the performance.
There are SO MANY items that are going to be placed and tested on that stage before opening night.
What are those things that you need to master, and put in place in order that this performance, called Having Positive Convos with my Man is going to go off without much of a hitch?
You might need to define “positive” for yourself a little more clearly.
You might need to practice relinquishing your manuals for your husband. Manuals are a concept we work on alot inside private coaching.
You might have to decide what emotion you want to come from during conversations and then learn how to cultivate those emotions regardless of the circumstances.
You might want to process through some resentment about past conversations.
Right all of that and more has to be set, before you can “JUST” have positive convos with your husband.
Any time you say “just” do X, I want you to notice if you are conscious of HOW to do X. You know how, or at least how to find out how to do anything, right? But are you just breezily telling yourself just do this thing and then your body and mind are like well that thing is a very simplified way of saying something that you need to guide us through. You need to set us up for.
It is up to you to be as clear as possible with what you want, and how to get it. Bring the how into your conscious awareness.
If you want to have more confidence, saying “just be more confident” is not very helpful.
If you want to stop fighting with your boyfriend, saying “just stop fighting with him” is not very helpful.
I want you to suss out the nitty gritty. Break it down for yourself so you actually know, clearly, what you want to do.
When clients come to me and I say why do you want Coaching now and they say I just want to change my life, I’m like what does that mean? How? Where? What will I see that is different? Changing my life is a catch all phrase. I’ve given myself permission to use it haha because I am a life coach for women with all different struggles. I help you change your life yes, but that’s not what we will work on. I don’t have any modules in my client portal that say “how to change your life” because its aimless. What exactly do you want to change? What exactly are you going to do to change it. So, no more using vague, broad, potentially confusing sentiments about your own desires. Give yourself the deets. See how much farther that takes you.
Ok speaking of being vague, this podcast, as epic and valuable and potentially “life changing” as it is, is too vague for you to change YOUR UNIQUE situations with. Private Coaching is where we take these generalized sentiments like change your life, feel better, be yourself, and make the micro movements that actually apply to your desires. We’re not going to JUST write that book you want to write, we’re going to identify and understand the thoughts that are stopping you from doing it in the first place, learn how to fail on purpose and have your own back, practice understanding your full body YES, creating new neural connections between making a decision and following through, learning the skill of evaluation and time creation, plus probably a few more things that I will need you and your unique brain to come up with. The podcast is rad. Keep listening. Keep sharing it with your friends. Keep applying what you can from here, but also, if you’ve been thinking about Coaching with me, it’s definitely times to get own to the nitty gritty. Sign up for a consultation. You can find the link to book into my calendar by visiting my website hannakokovai.com or just get in touch directly with me and we will chat about exactly what we’re going to do next.
Talk to you next time.