The Dial — How and Why We Lose Ourselves Unintentionally

Automatically transcribed, so the wording is close but not exact.

Macie: Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of this is not your practice life podcast. My name is Macie and I am so excited that you're joining me today. If you're a brand new listener, welcome to the podcast. And if you are a returning listener, welcome back. I'm so happy to have you before we get into today's topic, which will be really, really good. I just want to remind you that I am still enrolling for the immersion collection, which is all of my EQ work over the course of structured ⁓ very but yet still very spacious. gives you the opportunity to do all of my ⁓ emotional core programs. We'll start with one-on-one coaching. We'll then go into my mini programs And then we will go into the advanced work of the hybrid experience, my newest program, the art of agency, ⁓ and you get lifetime access to EQuipped Society® So you never lose a coaching space.

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Getting ready to start really soon. Okay. All right, let's talk about the topic of how we kind of lose ourselves and like how we start to question who we are, why we've ended up the way that we are, especially if it feels unaligned with who we desire to be. So a lot of times in our life, what happens is we will become older, get into our older age and recognize that we have been living a lot of our life to please other people. to make other people happy, other people satisfied. This episode is especially for the people who feel like they've spent their entire life dimming their light or walking on eggshells or reading the room, maybe emotionally managing other people. And you get to a place in your life where you no longer know who you are, what you want, or what the reactions would be if you just were to be exactly who you feel you are and who you desire to be.

And I think all of us kind of reach this point in some way. For some people, it is ⁓ for some people, it's more minor. For some people, they can make little tweaks like, okay, well, I've been telling a lot of people yes when I want to say no. And it can be a really simple fix for them in instead of saying yes, they just change it to they feel aligned to say no, they say no. And then they just let people be responsible for their feelings, whether that person's angry or disappointed or whatever. For other people, this is much more massive because so much of this happens in childhood of how we kind of ourselves or shrink ⁓ change ourselves to fit what is going to keep us the safest with the people that we love most.

And so that's really what I'm going to be talking about today is give you a visual of how this looks. ⁓ when we are maybe self betraying or when we know we're not doing what we want to be doing or living the life we want to be living because we're so afraid and fearful of losing people of what other people will think, what other people will say, and if it's going to be safe to really embrace who we truly feel that we are. So the way that I like to think about this, So when we're little kids, if you ever pay attention to children, you'll notice that a lot of times they just are who they are. Nobody has told them to be different yet. The world hasn't squashed them. for the average kid, a lot of times they have big hopes, big dreams.

They're naive. They don't really know what everything in the world entails. ⁓ when you are around children, you get to see this very pure, ⁓ essence of who they are. You get to see their spirit. You've got some people that are naturally maybe more quiet and reserved calm then you have others that are more outgoing and ⁓ maybe the of the party. And they really their presence known. ⁓ so children have this way of expressing themselves. And then over time, we're impacted and affected by other people what their thoughts are and what their beliefs are and the way that they raise us and, you know, other influences our life, like teachers or babysitters or other caregivers outside of our, ⁓ you know, immediate mother or father, you know, if we're raised by cousins or aunts and uncles.

so Over time, we are subjected to a lot of different people who are all living their life a certain way and who all carry their own beliefs and their own uniqueness. And even without maybe realizing it, you know, coming across all of those other people, what we also don't recognize is that every single person in our life is equipped with a different emotional capacity before they've practiced any of the self-awareness, self-help, personal development work. What happens a lot of times is that we are sometimes dimmed, even starting in childhood, because of lack of people's emotional awareness or emotional capacities. And so I want to give you a visual of what this kind of looks like. So if you are watching on YouTube, you can visually see this.

If you're listening on audio, just know that I am again, once again, using my whiteboard. And on my whiteboard, I have kind of this chart that ranges from zero all the way to 100. Now, what the 100 represents is you being 100 % yourself. So I really like to think of this in childhood, like when you're born or you're a really little kid, you just are who you are. You're not afraid of anything, really. Like you haven't yet had to change. to fit the mold of somebody else or to fit the beliefs and principles of someone else. Now, it's also really important to know that we are very tribal as human beings. We want to fit in. We want to feel safe. We want to feel loved. And because of that, we really prioritize paying attention to anything that we say or do or how we behave that would impact someone.

being able to love us. We want to be lovable. We want to make sure we fit in. And so in the beginning, when we're children, a lot of times we're just 100 % our authentic self. What happens as we go out in the world or we have parents with, let's say, a different emotional capacity, know, different ways of handling things. We meet teachers, we have friends. maybe even bullies, just we come across a whole range of people in our life. What happens is we learn very quickly what needs to happen to stay safe and lovable. Okay. So for instance, if you start off at 100 % as everybody does, but then as a child, and I think I've shared this like really early on in my podcast, I don't even know what episode it would be, but I obviously didn't have visuals then, If very early on as a child, you constantly heard from your mom, this is just one example.

as a background, like I was a pediatric occupational therapist, so I was in the homes of hundreds and hundreds of families throughout my almost seven years as a pediatric OT. I got to actually see this in action a lot. And I want to just first start off by saying, because I know that this episode could be triggering, that What I'm about to say, even as examples, are not to call anybody out or make it seem like you're a horrible individual. If you've done this, if you've said this, I'm just going to give random examples of things I've thought about. Even random examples from my own childhood of things that I was told and physically remembering how it impacted me. The whole point of saying it is to bring your awareness to it because you can't change.

you hear something in this podcast that triggers you or upsets you, you cannot decide even if you want to change it unless you hear it. Hearing it brings the awareness. Hearing it allows your brain to go, hmm, do I do that? And if you feel triggered in the fact that you do that, once you know about it, you also have the autonomy to decide if it's something you want to keep or if it's something that you want to change. So if I say anything that, you know, feels like it lands pretty ⁓ in your body, just know like, I'm not calling you out. There's nobody in particular that I am thinking about as I do this other than maybe my own family, right? But I don't even fault them for it because this kind of stuff is ingrained in us unless we genuinely become aware of it and then choose to change it.

So it's very second nature. And I just want to like point that out. So Something that I would hear a lot of times as a kid, even for myself, if I had a lot of high energy, okay, lots of high energy and I was really excited or something would happen and I'd want to squeal and like fully express my authentic emotion. lot of times that was met with resistance by certain family members. So what this looks like was a very innocent way of being like, ⁓ my gosh, just Calm down a little bit. You're so rambunctious. You're so energetic. Like, why do you get that excited and worked up? Like, calm down. I have a headache today or I have a migraine today. Now, again, remember that as a child, that was authentic expression.

Okay. Maybe not managed the best way. Maybe not always in the appropriate settings, right? Because you're a child and a lot of times you don't know. But what happens almost to us immediately is if there is any threat of losing our lovability, our safety, our ability to fit in with the person we love most, whether that's mom or dad or grandma or siblings or whatever, aunties, uncles, teachers, it doesn't really matter. What the system learns, system, AKA your body, your nervous system is like, me calculate that. They're not happy with me showing up at my 100 % full capacity. It's a little too much. I should probably turn the dial down a little bit. So I like to think of this as a dial. Okay.

So I was at 100 % totally me, totally myself, but it's not being received very well. And I still want to be likable and lovable and accepted. So I'm just going to tone myself down to a 90. Okay, so now with maybe mom, dad, whoever it may be, this adult, I'll operate at 90 % level of excitement whenever there's something big happening in life. Like I'm just gonna kind of mute that a little bit because it was too much. Okay, do you see where this is happening? Now, imagine that also you're in school and you meet friends and For the most part, your friends are really great, but then there are maybe some friends that you just really, really love and want to hang out with. And they tell you that you're too much or you're chubby or you don't look like them or, know, you're not, don't like the same things.

You don't like to play the same games. You don't have the same interests. Maybe, you know, they could be cheer team. You're in band, whatever it may be. ⁓ And you like and love these friends. to be rejected almost in any kind of way or to feel even the potential for any kind of rejection or being pulled away from something that you really want. In that moment, your system will decide, do I honor who I am? Right. And I'm operating now at 90 % of myself or Do I change it to be what these friends that I really want to be friends with enjoy? So they're telling me I'm too much or they're telling me like I act too smart or they're telling me like we don't have the same interest. don't want to lose them.

I really like them, especially when you're thinking younger mind. So you know what? I'm just going to turn my dial down a little bit more. Let's go ahead and go to the 70. When I'm at 70%, I'm very likable by my friends. when I'm at 70%, I'm very tolerated or tolerable by my parents in certain aspects. So here's the thing. We do this. ⁓ We do this throughout our life and we just kind of turn dial down a little bit at a time. It's like, ⁓ just a little bit. I'll change this thing about myself. ⁓ just a little bit. Now I want to stop here and just say that When people give us feedback on things, we, you know, we don't always have to take it. We don't always have to change things. I think it really depends what it's about because there are certain things people will bring to my awareness.

And if it's an area that I can grow and it's an area where I can be better, I'm glad that they told me not because I'm always going to be able to implement it or change it overnight or right away. But again, you can't change things until you become aware. So When we think of this in our older age, like whatever age you are now, I don't always take someone's, I call it like feedback or what they bring awareness to. I don't always take it as like offensive and you want me to be different because I think that that could really easily happen or be a thought in the brain after seeing something like this, a model like this. The way that I think about it is like, ⁓ Okay, thank you for that feedback.

And I might sit and marinate on it. And if it's something that I maybe don't enjoy, then I might change it. But I to change it from the fact that I want that to feel more like me. Like I want to feel a certain way or I want to operate a certain way. So if someone's like, ⁓ know what, Macie I absolutely adore you. But I find that maybe like you you talk over people or something like if someone were to come and bring me the feedback of like you always interrupt and you talk over people. I would be like, okay, like I want to take a step back and see if that feels true for me because what may have happened if that happened really young is like, ⁓ I constantly talk over people? Like I might immediately be like, okay, well, don't want to do that anymore.

So I might turn and mute my dial, you know, like turn it down just a little bit more and be like, you know what, what that looks like then is just not talking and not contributing and just being more quiet. So there is the potential that that could be something that someone does. What I know in my age now, if someone gave me that feedback, it would be like, ⁓ do I do that? Well, I actually want to be the person that is a really good listener, but also a great conversator. So I need to figure out how not to like totally mute my voice and change the fact that I want to be a contributor, but I need to figure out how to do it in maybe more of a respectful way or a way where I'm being more aware that someone else has the floor and I need to be patient and wait for my turn.

So that's just an example, okay? Like it doesn't always mean that we to change. It also doesn't mean that we are not allowed to change, but I think whenever it's something that's gonna make us better and it's something we align with and it's something that we want, instead of it lowering our dial to make us less like ourselves, we have the invitation and the opportunity to make it be something that ⁓ us closer to ourself more to what that original great self that we align with and that we want to be so in speaking of this like we will do this with our dial like let's say you are so Get hired in ⁓ job ⁓ you get a bunch of feedback from your boss about they don't like this and they don't like this about you and they you know They're they're struggling with this quality that you have and this quality that you hold And if you really want to keep that job and you really want that leader or management to like you, you may water yourself down again.

So just think about in your life, how many ⁓ ⁓ maybe how many influences ⁓ made something land in your body where you felt like, if I don't change this, I'm not going to be likable, lovable, safe. ⁓ be like, I'm not going to be able to have my same friends. It's going to be a disaster. And I'll give you more common ways that this happens. So like when I wanted to quit my career in occupational therapy, really like struggled. Like if I would have just honored myself at 100 % me, this is what I know that I want to do. I would have just done it very quickly because I knew, I knew myself, but I had a lot of mind drama. over what everybody was going to think about my decision. Macie why did you spend like over $80,000 on an education and then not use it?

Macie, why would you go to college and make us so proud of late to quit and do this thing called life coaching full time? How are you going to get clients? How are you going to make money? How is that going to be sustainable? What are you thinking? What do you mean you're going to be an entrepreneur? All of this stuff. And so for the longest time for years, when I knew that I could be operating from just 100 % authentic me and what I felt I was capable of. Instead, I factored in like what friends are going to judge me. What are they going to think? What friends might I lose because they don't get me or understand I might lose family members because they don't get it and they're not happy with my decision.

They don't agree with my decision. And with that being said, like I would just mute myself. So I was operating at like 40%. Well, I didn't feel good at 40%. Because 40 % is not me, right? This is me over here at the 100%. This is me living authentically, doing what feels good in my life, really honoring myself, really showing up as who I want to be. Anything less than that is me changing for other people because of other people, not because I necessarily want to, but because at the time when it landed in my body, it felt like there was a risk ⁓ to. There was a risk not to change. So think about this for you, right? Where did you ever feel like even if it wasn't intentional from the person it was coming from, but where did you ever feel like they were asking something of you that you maybe didn't align with or you weren't feeling, but you're like, I want to impress this person.

I want this person to be my friend. I want this romantic partner to love me. I don't want them to break up with me. I don't want. You know, I just, I'm really afraid of what the alternative might be of honoring my yeses or honoring my no's or not people pleasing or speaking up or being assertive or, you know, asking questions, challenging my coworkers or my boss, like, you know, speaking up for myself, any of those things that we're kind of afraid of and we're worried of losing something. more than or losing someone more than losing ourself, we will adjust our dial. So what happens a lot of times with clients that come to me is they will come to me somewhere in this department where they're like, I don't know myself anymore.

I don't know what I like. I don't know what I love. I just don't feel like myself. I can't tell you what I want for my career. I can't tell you, you know, I know I want to make make more money. couldn't tell you how much or what I would be doing. I feel like my ⁓ could be in a much better place, but I don't even know how to go about that because we think so differently. And I feel like ⁓ I don't do what he or she kind of wants, then we're on totally different pages and then we're resentful with one another. ⁓ don't maybe have ⁓ lot of friends or the friends that I do have. Sometimes I feel like You know, we would outgrow each other if I really went after the life that I want or did what I want to do, or if I stopped people pleasing them, if I started saying no, like I and they're coming to me and they're very confused at who they are because of this fear, you know, where it's like in any given moment when they were presented with something by someone, it was just easier to lower the dial.

It was just easier. to go down to this and then eventually to this and then eventually to this, right? It's just been easier to keep shifting the dial. But after a while, when you realize that you've kind of lost yourself and you're living your life for other people, or you're living a life that feels inauthentic to you, or there's just certain things you know have to change, you know, there are certain boundaries that need to happen. You know that there are certain decisions you need to make. You know that there are hard conversations you're going to have to have. You know, you're ready for more. You're ready for a career change or a promotion or, you know, to go back to school. You're ready for, you know, really healthy, romantic relationship or friendships, like anything.

You have to be able to come back to your full authentic self to achieve the things that you want. So if clients come to me and they've started at, you know, a 10 % of themselves, 20 % of themselves, I'm trying to get to know who they were or how they think that they would feel if they operated from 100%. And any fear that is keeping them from operating at 100%, that's what we're working on with emotional intelligence coaching to make sure they reconnect back to this version of themselves, because this version of yourself is like the full tank of gas. So when you're operating in life, you want a full tank of gas to get where you're trying to go. If you are down to 10%, it's really, really hard to reach any of your goals when you only have 10 % of yourself in your tank, right?

Helping you get there. And of course it feels confusing and hard and misaligned and all over the place because you at this level are so depleted. You don't even really know what you want and what you need. Like when I hired my life coach, remember on the console and I know if you've been here a while, you've heard me say this, but I literally was so depleted from living my life based on what everybody else wanted and how I was going to be the most lovable. Cause I have my core wound is like this abandonment wound from childhood. And I had so much fear around if I say the wrong thing, if I do the wrong thing, if I live the wrong way, according to the people I love most, I'm probably going to be abandoned.

I'm going to be abandoned in friendships. I'm going to be abandoned in career. I'm going to be abandoned in family. I'm going to be abandoned." And it was just like this really big fear. And so I eventually got myself down to, I would even go to say zero percent. that was a really hard place to be. And at that zero percent, I was like, I can't do this anymore. If something doesn't change, like this will literally kill me. It feels like I am at my mental and emotional lowest, which then fills my You know, like I'm at my physical lowest and my spiritual lowest. that being said, that's when I gave my life coach a call and I can remember her saying like, what do you want out of a life coach? And the first sentence that I said was someone to kick my ass.

Literally I said, I need someone to kick my ass. And, you know, I laughed and she really didn't laugh that much, ⁓ she was like, I hear you. And I think that that's what a lot of people would want, but in all seriousness, what do you think you need out of a coach? And I just. took this deep breath and I said, honestly, said, I'm going to be so, so honest with you. I don't know up from down, left from right. I don't even know what I need. I don't know who I am. I couldn't tell you where my life will be in the next five years. I can just tell you if I don't change anything, ⁓ is going to work. My relationship is probably going to fail. I'm not going to like myself. I am not happy. ⁓ can't tell you anything.

that I even want in my life other than to be out of this place right now. Because I was depleted. I couldn't even see the vision for my life at this much depletion. So we had to do the work to get me there, right? And as I started taking back my power and gaining more fuel, it was realizing like, ⁓ okay, I have kind of lost myself. And I came up with this visual of like, okay, like who? was I before I was afraid of disappointing everybody? Who was I before I felt like I had to emotionally rescue other people in my life? Like I'm talking even down to like if you've ever in your life walked on eggshells because you can tell somebody else is in a bad mood and maybe there's a need you have for yourself or a question you want to ask or a conversation you want to have, but you don't even have the conversation or address the situation because you can tell you're walking on emotional eggshells because that other person may become explosive or reactionary and it may end up in a bad situation for you.

That is even lowering your dial. It's being like, you know what? I can read the energy of the room and I can tell this person's not at the capacity that I am. So the way that I can relate best to them is to be at a capacity of 80 % me. If I'm at an 80 % me, I can manage them. But your life for you is meant to be at 100%. So if this resonates with you, this is another wonderful reason to get coaching because I want every woman that comes into their life or is already living in their life to feel like they're at 100 % and that they truly feel authentic and how they're navigating the world and they're eager to learn and they want to learn and you know, they're not turned off to any turned off to any of their own growth, but they want to do it from what really does feel true and aligned for them, not what every single other person wants for them.

And so if that resonates with you, I would love to have you. The immersion collection is going to be the best way you have a really good savings by just committing and deciding that you're going to do coaching for one year. And like I said, you're going to get to go with me in order of my core programs and you're going to build your skills. over the course of one year's time. It is such a wonderful opportunity to get to do everything my clients have experienced over the course of years, but you'll again get to do it in order. So everything stacks and you get to do foundational work and advanced work. It's really, really awesome. And then after you finish a year in the immersion collection in twenty-twenty-eight when I host my women's retreat in Italy, you will have qualified yourself to apply for that trip.

because you're going to be well equipped in emotional intelligence. You're going to be someone that I really trust can carry herself to a trip that exciting and big internationally. Otherwise, if you've done some of my programs, if you feel like you're just missing like one or two, or there's a few things you want to refresh yourself in, ⁓ just make sure you're reaching out. Book a consult. That is the easiest way. And ⁓ now is the perfect time. So if there's ⁓ piece of advice that I could give you right now, is that if there's anything that you want to do, whether it's the immersion collection itself or something that is listed my website or in the immersion collection, go ahead now and sign up for 60 minute free consults so that I can get to know you.

We can get to know where you are. We can get to know what you're interested in and we can figure out what the best solution is for you in moving forward with coaching, whether that's a program here and a program there, OR doing everything in order. you know, so you can stack your skills. So that would be my recommendation, especially if any of this resonated with you today. right, my friends, thank you for being here so much. Again, share the podcast, make sure you like and subscribe and it to any friends that you may think are interested. And then if you have any questions or want to schedule a consult, you can do at macierenae. com I'll see you guys next time.