Who Are You Underneath Everything You’ve Learned to Be?

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it really means to come home to yourself. We hear phrases like find yourself or be yourself, but what does that actually mean when you’ve spent decades becoming who you thought you needed to be?

For many women, we learned very early to be the good girl.

Be helpful.
Be nice.
Don’t make a fuss.
Take care of everyone.
Be responsible.
Say yes.
Keep the peace.
Don’t disappoint anyone.

And somewhere along the way, those things stopped feeling like things we were doing. They became who we thought we were. I know they did for me.

I didn’t know I was people-pleasing. I thought I was easygoing.
I didn’t know I had lost my voice. I thought I didn’t like confrontation.
I didn’t know I was carrying responsibility that wasn’t mine. I thought I was responsible.
I didn’t realize how often I put myself last. I thought that was what a good mother, wife,
employee, daughter and friend did.
I didn’t realize how exhausted I was from being available to everyone.

I thought that was my life.

And I certainly didn’t realize how much shame and guilt I had picked up along the way.

When Other People’s Words Become Your Own

I talked this week about the shame I’ve carried around my weight. That shame didn’t begin with me. When I was much younger and literally 100 pounds lighter than I am today, I was criticized about my weight. Over time, those comments became something I carried.

I didn't wake up one morning and consciously decide to feel ashamed of my body. I learned it. Eventually I didn't need anyone else to say those things to me.

I could say them to myself.

That's what struck me recently. How many beliefs do we carry about ourselves that started with somebody else's voice?

You're too loud.
You're too sensitive.
You need to lose weight.
Don't be selfish.
Don't upset anyone.
Why can't you be more like...?
Be a good girl.
We absorb these messages.

Then life adds a few more.

A rejection.
A relationship.
A divorce.
A comment from a friend.
Being dismissed in a meeting.
Something said about our body.
A moment when we spoke up and wished we hadn't.\
A time we said no and someone became angry.

So we adapt. We become quieter, more accommodating, more responsible, more careful. We play smaller. We say yes when we mean no.

Eventually we can become so accustomed to this version of ourselves that we don't even realize there might be someone underneath it.

The Golden Buddha

One of my favourite stories is the Golden Buddha. For centuries, an enormous Buddha statue in Thailand was believed to be made of plaster or stucco. In the 1500s, while the statue was being moved, part of its outer covering cracked.

Underneath the plaster was gold, not a little gold, a massive statue of solid gold.

The prevailing story is that the statue had been covered centuries earlier, likely to conceal its value during a period of conflict. Eventually, generations passed and the knowledge of what was underneath was lost.

I love that story.

Because here's the part that matters to me:

The Buddha didn't become gold when the plaster cracked.
It had always been gold.
The plaster was protection.

That's how I think about so much of what we carry.

The people-pleasing.
The perfectionism.
The silence.
The shame.
The guilt.
The need to take care of everybody.
The need to prove ourselves.
The constant doing.

Those layers may have served us at some point but they aren't necessarily us. Coming home to yourself isn't about creating some shiny new version of you. It's about gently uncovering what's already underneath.

Who Are You Underneath the Plaster?

That's a question I've had to learn to ask myself.

Who am I?

Not who does everybody else need me to be?
Not what should I be doing?
Not what would make somebody else happy?
Not what will everyone think?

Me.

What makes me laugh?
What brings me peace?
What do I want?
What do I believe?
What do I dream about?
What makes me feel alive?
What do I want to say yes to simply because I want to?
What do I want to say no to and allow myself to be okay with that answer?

Those questions can be surprisingly difficult when you've spent much of your life looking outward for the answers. You don't have to answer all of them today.

Coming home isn't another assignment you have to complete perfectly. It's a discovery.

Maybe We Need to Unlearn Before We Remember

Part of coming home to yourself is questioning some of the things you've learned about yourself.

Maybe guilt doesn't have to follow every no.
Maybe taking time for yourself doesn't require an explanation.
Maybe someone else's disappointment doesn't mean you've done something wrong.
Maybe your body was never something you needed to be ashamed of.
Maybe you don't have to earn rest.
Maybe you don't have to make everybody happy.
Maybe you get to have an opinion.
Maybe you get to change your mind.
Maybe you get to want something simply because you want it.

And maybe you don't know what you want yet. That's okay. You can start small.

Put your phone down while you're getting the pedicure.
Listen to the music you love.
Take five minutes outside.
Laugh loudly.
Wear something because it makes you feel fabulous.
Say yes and mean it.
Say no and allow that to be enough.
Pay attention to the little moments when something inside you lights up.

Because every once in a while, underneath all those layers, you might catch a glimpse and think:

Oh...there I am.

The Gold Was Always There

Your laughter.
Your voice.
Your curiosity.
Your opinions.
Your dreams.
Your confidence.
Your silliness.
Your desires.
Your peace.

None of those things need to be manufactured. The gold was always there. You're not going to smash all the plaster off at once. You're going to find a crack. Then another.

We're going to learn some tools that help us feel calmer when life feels overwhelming, pay attention to how we speak to ourselves, notice what exhausts us and what gives us energy. We're going to question some old beliefs and release some of the emotional weight we've been carrying.

And little by little, we're going to uncover what's underneath.

You.

Not the woman everyone told you to be.
Not the woman everyone needed you to be.

You.

Perhaps that's what coming home to yourself really is. Not going backwards ort becoming someone new.

Remembering who you are underneath everything you've learned to be.

Come Home to Yourself

On September 16 at 7 p.m., I'm hosting my free masterclass, Coming Home to Yourself.

We're going to talk about why some of these patterns develop, why you can know you want something different and still find change so difficult and, most importantly, what you can begin doing about it.

I'll teach you simple tools you can use when you're anxious, overwhelmed or exhausted to create more calm and ease in your everyday life.

You don't have to uncover everything at once.

You don't have to know exactly who you are underneath all those layers.

Let's find the first crack in the plaster.

The gold is already there.