What if every book, every class you take, every retreat you go on, every new habit or hack you try, what if they all just have one job—
to return you to who you really are?
Today we’re going to talk about this….why the entire point of self-development is authenticity,
what blocks it for midlife women,
and five simple steps to peel back the layers
so you can live in integrity.    

So One of my favorite quotes of Rumi’s is
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you truly love.”
That pull is your compass. It’s like a magnet pulling at you, it’s information that is meant for you. And I believe that if we easily followed those longings, we would live in accordance with our nature.
But mostly, we don’t. Why is that? We have been taught that we need to do things in a certain way. We need to get a certain job that makes sufficient money, the more the better. And we built a society that makes that quite true. We have been taught to constrain our behavior based on current ideas about morality, or we have a religious upbringing that says “This is what it looks like to be a good person.”   Over the centuries, We have been so trained away from our authenticity that most women can’t even name what they want. They want everyone else to be happy so they can be happy. And there are beliefs underneath like they think that they probably can’t have what they want so they’ve stopped thinking about it, or that only selfish or greedy people want more, or they should just be happy with what they have and stop dreaming……These are beliefs that stand in the way of you following your own compass. And when we are not following our own compass, we are in despair…and it causes us to seek.  So self-development is not about adding a new habit.
It’s about removing what is in the way of what would naturally make you happy. It’s not about adding, it’s subtracting.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the The Stoics, ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, they called the good life living in agreement with nature, Not just trees and oceans—they meant your nature.  This is what I mean when I say that our modern lives have pulled us far away from nature itself—we live indoors in comfort, pretty much, “protected” from nature which has many upsides I wouldn’t want the opposite, but it has had downsides too. As our lives have become more comfortable, we are pulled further and further away from what is actually meant for us, and what is actually meant for us is beneficial to all. This is not how we think—we think aligning our lives with our own wishes and longings is for selfish people. We think Good people maybe do a little bit of that but they don’t go overboard—good people are doing what is best for others. It sounds so good, it sounds so moral and righteous that it tricks us into turning our back on ourselves.

So Who lives in accordance with their nature?......well, all of the natural world. Humans are the confused ones but nature just acts in accordance with its nature. A lion acts like a lion. It doesn’t compare itself to a giraffe and think, man I am too short. I can’t possibly feel powerful because I’m not tall and graceful.  No, it just does what it does. You will notice it doesn’t confine itself to being “nice.” It scares the hell out of a lot of other animals and hunts them down and eats them. That is its nature.  The closer to nature you live, the more you respect the circle of life. It all works from a very big picture.  You don’t have to understand HOW your own longings are a beneficial part of the circle of life—you don’t have the perspective to understand it—you’r ejust supposed to lean into your longings. A lion doesn’t say—it’s okay to scare this gazelle and eat it because I know this is beneficial to the circle of life. It just is itself.  That’s you too…..you are not supposed to understand the big picture, you’re supposed to just do your part by being yourself.  

When we drift away from what’s true for us—even a little —we feel it.
Tight chest. Overexplaining. Numbing out.
The cure isn’t more willpower. It’s small turns back to truth. This is why I call my class FB—you learn to move in the direction of better. Your emotions are your guide.

So these feelings really surface for us in midlife…..
Roles shift. Hormones shift. We are looking in the rearview mirror and We see our wrong turns with more clarity. Our Tolerance for self-betrayal starts dropping. We are starting to cultivate wisdom.
You start to tune in to the feelings that say…
“This isn’t me.”, or this isn’t me anymore. And I think I’m tired of not being me. It’s painful to not be me.  So now the longing is there—I want to be me, but here is where we can get stuck. It feels like there are obstacles….what are the obstacles?

The Shoulds.
Inherited rules that override inner wisdom. The shoulds have us feeling shame. Should=Shame, and shame is a powerful way for a society to be controlled.

We are addicted to approval and people pleasing.
The fear of being disapproved of is really strong. We can build our life around avoiding that fear.  When we are people pleasing it means Our need to feel safe is based on how other people view us, and in the process we abandon ourselves.

Over-functioning.
Busyness as anesthesia, our productivity is our armor. We literally don’t slow down enough to know if we are feeling fulfilled, because we are afraid to know. We don’t want to know the answer because we think it will open up a big bag of worms that we won’t want to look at.

And then,
There are some of us that the idea of being honest sounds dangerous. Not just uncomfortable, but kind of terrifying. This is a Dysregulated nervous system. Where you are in constant fight, flight, or freeze you have adrenaline running through you all the time….you never learned to feel safe even when you are physically safe, never learned how to create that safety for yourself, how to comfort yourself…..and it becomes a cycle where you keep abandoning yourself in order to feel safe so you get relief in the short run but experience the long term pain of not being true to yourself. 
So, let’s talk about how to overcome these obstacles, how DO you peel back the layers so that you can relax and be more authentically you?

Well it’s going to start with you asking and answering some questions…..so I am going to give you a few questions,  and then we’re going to go thru the steps….

Pre-question (daily compass):
Where do I not feel free to be myself?
Where am I performing, pleasing, or shrinking?—with a person, in a specific setting, in a certain situation……..ok, ask and answer those questions and then you go to step one. Step one is PICK ONE Context—person, situation or setting, even if you have more than one, just pick one.

When we go too big, we can’t get any traction. Whenever we want to change something as big as being more authentic, you have to get small and narrow. That’s where the change happens. So let’s say you decide there’s a co-worker (let’s say her name is Sue) where you notice that you do not feel free to be yourself. And just fill in this sentence: I edit myself with Sue by ______ because I fear ______.”  Naming the thing that you fear is so helpful. Mostly, we just feel afraid and avoid the feeling, that’s the nature of our brains. So when you slow down and actually say out loud what it is you are afraid will happen if you are honest, it can really defang the fear. I’m afraid she will belittle me, and then I will feel embarrassed, and then I will regret being honest so I’d rather just hide my truth. You haven’t solved it yet but you can see the part you are playing….

Okay, Step 2 is Regulate Before You Relate

Your body needs to feel safe to deliver truth. You won’t feel completely calm, you might feel nervous, fluttery, but you don’t want to feel huge spikes of fear…..so you do exactly what I teach my students: you name and locate it. “This is anxiety.” And then notice where it is in your body. Put all of your attention there, in your body, and breathe into it. You can place a hand or both hands on your heart, and breathe. If it helps you can say I am safe.

When your nervous system is online, truth actually sounds like you—instead of a grenade.

 Ok, so Step 3 is — Tell the Smallest True Thing. When you feel afraid, I find it is best to inch your way out. Its’ like imagine you have a circle around you of comfort, your comfort zone. Rather than jump waaaay outside of your comfort zone by spouting everything you’ve been wanting to say to Sue but haven’t said it, that will likely leave you in a big vulnerability hangover and have scurrying back to your old comfort zone. Instead, you nudge the edges of your comfort zone with one true thing, the smallest true thing. This is not about Sue changing, this is about you creating more safety for yourself.

So ask What is the least risky truth I can say or do here?, like a micro truth…..

“I can’t meet at 7am. 9am works. 
“I’m available for A and B, not C.”

I’m not comfortable with that.

“I need a moment to think so I can answer accurately.”

 Small truths teach your body: I can be honest and safe.

Step 4 — Replace the Should with a Principle

What I mean by this is your job in this life is to develop your own set of values—what is important to you. So instead of just saying I’m afraid to be myself with Sue and I should be brave, think about WHY this is important to you…..ask yourself, …What value of mine belongs here? Because guess what, you don’t HAVE TO do anything. You get to decide. You could just be silent with Sue, let her go off and do her thing but it’s bothering you. Why? Get clear so that you understand your own motivations better. This is bothering you because it is coming up against something you value—what is it? And state it in the affirmative…I do not abandon myself for being liked…..I criticize ideas, not people and I want to be a role model for that. Or…. I’ve learned that it’s important to be clear early.  A clear NO early is better than a resentful yes or an anxious maybe.

When you have uncovered a value, write it down. Have them in front of you, and consult them before a tough conversation. Very helpful….Make sense?

And Step 5 is –practice incorporating these micro truths into your life. It’s like a micro-brave.

• A cleaner no.

• A truer yes.

• Tiny moments when you say the true thing without exaggeration, or without over explanation.

Those are the 5 steps and I want to tell you about how this worked in a real life situation….

A had a client who was in charge of web development and some other tech stuff and she was absolutely dreading her bi-weekly team meetings. She said no matter how the discussion went, she would stay agreeable and nod along, Then she would stay up for hours fixing what she didn’t say.”
Her sentence from Step 1 was:
“I edit myself by staying vague because I fear being seen as difficult.” And she thought if she was seen as difficult she would lose her job…..so just naming that fear was so helpful because she could see that not being clear and overworking herself was a much bigger hazard really.

We practiced Step 2—regulation first.
Then Step 3—say the smallest true thing:
“At the top of the meeting I’ll say, ‘To be clear, my priority is X.” It was such a simple thing but she did it. and she said Her voice shook.
But the earth didn’t split.
Instead, here’s what  happened:
Throughout the conversation, they would check in with her—if we do Y, will that fit with your priority of X? Before, she wasn’t even being included in the conversation. And she realized it was her own making. It was one tiny step that gave her huge relief….and it was a small but important step back toward her own authenticity. It’s a step toward strengthening her relationship with herself, strengthening self trust.  This is how you do it…you don’t do it in one big dramatic scene like you see in a movie, you do it by being brave and creating more safety in your body to be yourself. Bit by bit.  

If you practiced this for a year, you would have a completely different life. It would feel very different. You would have a more aligned life, a more authentic life. And a more authentic life is easier. It’s lighter. You’re not putting all of your energy into protecting yourself, and you’re not spending so much energy on regretting what you didn’t say or what you haven’t done, and all the ways you have to change. All of that self criticism drops, and you just start moving with the flow of your life, the river carries you more instead of fighting upstream. It is, I believe, the entire point of seeking self development. Not to turn into a perfect version of someone else, but rather to just enjoy being you.

That’s what I’ve got for you, I hope that was helpful. And I will see you next time.