Crafting Your True Self: Defining Identity In A Complex World

My dear passengers , I have officially turned 30 and I'm feeling very flirty , very thriving and very hurting in muscles and bones that I did not even know I had . And now , with my older age , I'm feeling all around , but it doesn't matter , because I feel blessed , I feel thankful and I feel very excited for this new era in my life .

And I know what you guys are thinking . Which era are you stepping to , Frances ? Cause you've already had your healing era , you've already had your Badgirl era . So where exactly are you ? Well , let me tell you , I am in my calm , peaceful , loving era .

Okay , this is the era where I learn how to work and focus mainly on my self-worth , my self-love , my self-compassion , my self-attention and my self-care . Why ? Because there's no better day than today to get started , and I think you should join me on this era as well .

Well , my dear passengers , the time has come for us to buckle up our seatbelts and head on to the first stop of the day . That is the topic of the day , and today's topic is identity . I do like the lower note . I did there . Identity , identity . All right , you guys get it . That's the topic of the day .

Identity is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a distinguishing character or personality trait of an individual . My dear passengers , let me tell you about this episode . I have been wanting to do this episode for years . Okay , and it just never felt right .

And like , I've always been very cognizant of the fact that , when it comes to this podcast , I have to follow my gut and I have to follow what I feel . And I was like it's not time yet , it's not time yet . And then yesterday I turned 30 and I was like you know , I really need to keep going with the podcast because I started it again .

Let's just , let's just keep on this momentum , let's keep up this domino effect and just keep releasing episodes . And I was like , well , what am I going to talk about ? And I was like , wait , identity . You've been wanting to talk to about identity for so long and now it's the perfect chance to do it .

For today's episode , I will be using a couple of resources that I found online and , obviously , my personal stories . The first resource that I will be using . It's an article by Morning Coach called Building your Identity . The second resource is an article titled Who Am I ? How to Find your Sense of Self , and this is from Healthline . com .

And the last one is the article titled How to Reinvent your Self-Identity and Live your Best Life by Forbes . And just so you guys know , I am not going to be reading the articles . I'm literally just going to be taking nuggets of wisdom from each one of the articles or like skills and techniques that they teach , and implementing them into the episode .

But , just so you know , I always put the resources down below because that way , if you want to go back and read them when you have time and you want to really practice what each one of these articles say , you know where to find them . First things first , do you know who you are , I'm talking about ?

Do you know what values you hold dear , what goals and aspirations you have for your life and also what things you're willing to tolerate and what things you're simply going to say , uh-uh , get out of here . I don't need that , because if you don't , that is literally the first step to crafting your identity .

You need to know exactly who you are right now , because if you don't know who you are right now , how are you going to know where you're at on the path to the person you're becoming ? Once you know who you are , you've got to think about what is the most important thing you want for yourself and my dear passengers . I'm going to be very honest .

As you guys know , I went through a breakup over the last year . Well , technically , it happened in 2023 , but 2024 was not an easy year , and one of the things that I noticed that I want right now is love . I realized that there are parts of me that have healed , yes , but they're still hurt .

There's still resentment , there's still unforgiveness , and I know me and I know my heart and I know that eventually , all that will come to pass , but right now , I'm not ready . I'm just not ready and I'm not going to keep trying to force myself to be ready for something that I'm really genuinely not .

So , for this reason , I've realized that a romantic relationship probably is not going to happen with me for a very long time , because there's just a lot of healing that I need to do . However , I crave love , I want love , I love love , and I saw this video on Instagram , which I'm going to put the link down here below .

It was a video that really impacted me because it was this individual talking about how their friends are their lovers and basically it's this idea of I take my friends on dates , I make trips with my friends and I make future plans with my friends .

No , it's not the romantic type of love that a lot of us crave and a lot of us deserve , but its a love that goes above the platonic , because you are actually putting in the time , effort and the resources to make it continue to grow and to show up for somebody else and say , hey , I love you , like , I love spending time with you , I want to invest my

time with you , and I think that there's such a big emphasis on romantic love and , again , let's give romantic love the credit that is due . Romantic love is amazing when it's great . It's not the best when it's not that great . But platonic love or friendship love is so genuine and it's so beautiful , and I think it's something that we need to as a society .

We need to start celebrating more , and I think that there has been a shift recently of , at least on my social media , but also NSA is watching , so maybe they're just sending me the things that I like , but I've seen this shift of treating your friends as your lovers , or treating your friends as more than not with a romantic connotation , but with the connotation

of they belong in your life and they have a very special place in your life that deserves to be celebrated , honored and taken the time for . Once you know what's important to you I guess you have to figure out how to express it .

So , again , for me , the most important thing right now in my life is love , primarily platonic love , but also self-love , and in order for me to showcase that through this new identity that I am forming , or this personality , I have to showcase it .

So it means going out of my way to make people feel welcome , going out of my way to make people want to smile , make people feel like that they're cared for right , and it doesn't mean that I'm perfect . I will never claim that I'm perfect .

Listen , I am a very resentful person , especially with my loved ones , if they hurt me , which is again getting back to the topic of forgiveness and my heart and like all of that .

But at the end of the day , the reality is , I believe , that each one of us has the ability and the possibility of changing for the better , which means that the resentment that I feel is towards that old version of yourself , and sometimes it just takes time for me to like heal from that . But I also know in my head people change .

So I want to start showing love to people , to kind of express my identity , which is one that is full of love , and again , I need to work on my resentment because I know that I need to . But for the most part , I am a very loving person .

So I think that this year , thanks to all the healing that I did , I'm able to go back to being a more loving person than I have been this past year and I'm very excited to see that shift , because that's definitely a part of my identity that I miss .

I want to be more loving and I want to be more welcoming and I want to be more excited and I want to be more everything Like it's just . It makes me so excited to think about the fact that I am going to be focusing on love and making it a part of my identity .

Like I want people to literally walk around me and be like , wow , this person just met me , but like she radiates love towards me .

I don't know who I'm talking to because I'm looking around in the room , but listen , I want to be like sunshine and I want people to literally walk like they're feeling all the love in the world , and that's a big goal , but I'm determined . So where are we now ? All right , so now it's a time where you have clarity on your vision .

What does your identity look like in my 30s ? I love to dance , sing , I am multi-passionate , have big heart I don't know , I feel like I'm doing a rap about myself , but like sometimes you have to talk about yourself that way .

Anyways , going back to the vision , create that clear vision of how you want people to identify you , and so , by creating that clear vision , you're able to see what's missing in the gap , right ? So for me , for example , I talked about being a loving person . I am a loving person . Legit , I'm a loving person .

I love people , but when my body says be resentful , I be resentful . When I want to be petty , I be petty . Is this the mature response ? No , but that's why I'm growing in my loving identity . All right , so this brings us to the next step , which is uncovering the gap . Very simple what is stopping you today from becoming the identity that you desire ?

Very simple , in my case . Again , we've been talking about being more loving . What's preventing me is my pettiness and also my resentfulness , and here's the thing I wish I could be super mature and be like let it go , let it go . However , I'm not there and I'm going to tell you why .

The reason that I'm not there is because my pettiness and my resentfulness has helped me in the past . It has become a bandage that has helped cover the burns and covering the hurt and made it easier for me to continue living another day . Okay , so this is not just going to like one day disappear . Okay , it's going to take time and I'm aware of it .

I'm less resentful and less petty than I was last year , so that's a win , but that also means that I still have a long way to go . So I think that , again , this is me talking for my example . That is the gap that I need to breach , like .

I just need to let go of the pettiness and let go of the resentfulness so that way I can focus on just being loving and being forgiving and being super welcoming and just being like , hey , we all make mistakes , everybody has those days . Everybody knows what I'm talking about . Everybody has that way . Oh my gosh , I don't want to get copyrighted .

Anyway , any who , any how . Now that you have uncovered a gap of where you are stuck from becoming the person that you want to become , right Comes the work , and I'm talking about the inner work and the outer work . We have so much work . I'm talking 24 , 7 , 365 or 366 , depending if it's a leap year . All the work that you have to do .

First of all , it's totally normal . Second of all , it's tiresome . Third of all , it's worth it . It is so worth it . You got to do what you got to do in order to become the person that you're trying to become , because there's nothing wrong with the person that you are . However , you cannot stay stagnant .

You have to learn , you have to grow , you have to heal , you have to experience life in all of its capacity , and so that means that this journey is a long one , but it's not an alone one , listen .

The last step is to take action consistently and intentionally , which means that in my case because again I've been using myself as the example of the night In my case I want to be more loving . That's the aspect of my identity that I'm working on .

That means that I need to put myself out there and I need to be open to experiences where my pettiness or my resentfulness might come out . But I get to tell myself , no , no , Frances Marie , we're not doing this . No more , we are becoming more loving . And I need to have those experiences in order to grow .

And the same thing with you , my dear passenger , whatever aspect of your personality , slash , identity you're working on improving , or like working to get to , you have to be intentional and you have to be consistent with it .

And , trust me , it's going to take a lot of practice and it's going to take a lot of time , but in the end , you are going to achieve the goal . Like , I know that the more that I practice on being loving , the more loving I'm going to become .

And by becoming the more loving person that I am today , I will eventually reach that loving entity , persona, aura , that I'm striving for , like I just know it , like I know it with the certainty in my heart , and I wish the same thing for you .

Whatever you're working for in your identity , whatever you're trying to craft into your personality , I genuinely hope that you find it within yourself to pay attention and really work on it , consistently and intentionally , because you deserve it . Well , my dear passenger , the time has come for the last step of the day , that is , recap time .

Today's episode discussed identity , which is a distinguishing character or personality trait of an individual . We now know that crafting our identity is not as hard as it seems . It just takes a lot of work . So the first thing is to know exactly who you currently are and who you're striving to be .

Once you know this , you're able to ask yourself what is stopping me from becoming this person ? Is it me ? Is it a character trait that I currently have ? Is it something outside of my control ? It might be a combination of different factors .

But once you do figure out what it is that is holding you back , you're able to focus and dedicate consistency , and also intentionality , into becoming the person that you're striving to be . Remember , self-growth is an endless journey towards self-improvement . However , you don't ever have to do it alone .

As your tour guide , my goal is to guide you with the best intentions and the best research available . Make sure to follow me on Facebook , Instagram and TikTok at the Self-Growth Train Podcast and to visit my newest website , theselfgrowthtrainpodcast . com . As always , all the resources used today have been added to the episode's description .

Well , until the next stop , dear passengers , safe travels , bye !