FREE2JustB

Unmasking Authenticity: The Reclamation of Self

• Terri Wilson

Share episode

Send us a text

Ever feel like you're trapped on a merry-go-round of social expectations, beauty standards, and external validation? You're not alone. The greatest struggle facing humanity today isn't about politics or economics—it's about reclaiming our authentic selves from the matrix that's programmed us since birth.

This powerful episode dives deep into the concept of personal reclamation—the journey back to who we truly are beneath the masks. Through vulnerable personal stories about gray hair, artificial nails, and the pressure to conform, Theresa Marie reveals how easily we can slip back into matrix patterns even when we think we're awake. She explores how comparison (literally "compare-sin") pulls us away from our truth and how the wilderness of authenticity, though sometimes lonely, provides the deepest connection to our true selves.

"An individual who is rooted in their inner self is always blissful," says Swami Dehan Gittin—but how many of us can claim this rootedness when we're constantly shape-shifting to please others? The matrix has convinced us that acceptance comes through conformity, that our natural aging process should be fought rather than embraced, and that our worth depends on fitting into predetermined boxes. These are lies that keep us frustrated, disconnected, and searching for that elusive "something" we can't quite name.

The path forward requires courage—courage to venture into the wilderness, to stand alone in your truth if necessary, and to recognize that "to be yourself in a world constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." What part of yourself will you reclaim today? Your truest self is waiting for you to come home.

Support the show

Speaker 1:

Is life nothing more than a continuous retreat from our true selves as we're hammered into shape by special schools and social cues? Well, claire Oshetsky really described for us the matrix merry-go-round, did she not? And Ollie Anderson quoted perfectly when he said whether you know it or not, whether you accept it or not, everything you do is about the reclamation of your own soul. And I want to welcome you back to Free To Just Be the podcast, empowering humanity to courageously step out of old matrix patterns and programs and give a big old hug to not only a new earth but a whole new way of being. And I hope this finds you in the greatest of health, with vibrant energy today, because you have chosen to give full responsibility for your body, mind and soul. Here I will inspire you to truly be who you came here to be Authentic, free and aligned with our highest potential.

Speaker 1:

Join me, teresa Marie, your traveling ambassador of Chi, on this transformative journey to rewrite our narratives and live lives of purpose and passion. And today, if you haven't already figured it out, today I'm going to focus on reclamation. Yes, it's time to reclaim our personhood. And what does reclaim mean? To retrieve, to take back something that was lost, taken or given away. Have you ever felt like you're just gone? You're gone, gone, gone like the beginning. Is it nothing more than retreating? Because we live in this big old matrix world? Right, and it's often a whole lot more difficult to go against that proverbial matrix flow, right? You know it's going round and around and around, and if you want to step off, well, you have the tendency of maybe spinning out to the ground, falling and skinning your knee or what have you. So what do we do? You know, everyone is trying to search for their true self, but everyone hides from other people. Some people don't even show their true colors, who they really are, to anybody, not even their family members or their spouse. Can you imagine never being who you truly are? To me, that is a life not even worth living, right? But the reason many of us never self-actualize is because it is easier to play a role than it is to become our true selves, which is what Jeff Goins said. You know we step outside.

Speaker 1:

I want you to think about just go with me here an image in you get up and you do whatever your morning routine is, and you step out of your home and walk to your car. How many of you, as you're going to a job that you absolutely hate. Or maybe it's a position where the job is okay, but the people you work with you are just miserable where you're at. How many of you, as you're driving in to that paycheck, which is really all it is. It's not a vocation, it's not something that you love, it is something that you are only absolutely tolerating to get that money at the end of the week. It's the thank God. It's Friday job, right, and what do we do? We talk ourselves up. Well, we're not really talking ourselves up. What we're doing is we're putting on that mask. Yep, I, you know I can do this. I'm a survivor. I, you know, I got this. It's just eight hours. It'll be over before I know it. Just put on a happy face. That, my dear ones, is the mask, the masks of life, and whether we know it or not, we're still all trying to reclaim our own souls. And what is reclamation? It's the act of something going back to a former or better state.

Speaker 1:

Now, I don't know about you, but when I was in utero, when I was not in the matrix or on the merry ground yet, it was pretty blissful in there. I was floating, I was the perfect temperature. It was pretty blissful in there. I was floating, I was the perfect temperature, I was being fed, I was so comfortable and, you know, absolutely full of ease, not dis-ease. I was floating and just everything was relaxed and I absolutely loved who I was because there was no stress, there was no pushback, there was no matrix merry-go-round in utero that I had to experience. And then we had to come into the world and immediately, immediately, we're given a number, aka our social security card, and we have been banked by the Western world, by the cabal, by the money changers. Right, they banked on us. They said, oh well, this person was born in an upper middle class family, so they will probably get a degree, so they'll make X amount of money, and this is how much money we'll make from them. Oh yes, welcome to the matrix.

Speaker 1:

But then you know, reclamation can also refer to restoring land to its original condition. The land that I'm referring to today is our body, mind and soul, our temples, our personhood, everything that we came to be right. We're talking about restoring it to its original condition or making it suitable for new use. Now we may not be able to go back and redo our past, but we can certainly make our future more suitable for better use, can't we? And reclamation also refers to the recovery of useful materials from waste products. Well, of course, that's the environmental version of the definition, but let's go there talking about our personhood. Have you ever come out of an incredible dark night of the soul, a tunnel you thought you were never going to come out of, and everything fell apart. An aspect of your life absolutely unraveled, and it ended up. You learned some very useful lessons, useful material from what looked like a wasteland. Right, so we can apply reclamation to the personal reclamation that I'm speaking about.

Speaker 1:

And what does Google say is the definition of personal reclamation? It's the process or re-evaluation and re-authoring of your life story to what To align with your own values and truth. It involves actively choosing your path and reclaiming ownership of your life, often after a period of focusing on others or external pressures. That is the matrix, the external pressures is the matrix wheel that goes round and around that we feel like we're the hamster in the cage, right and right now, literally, it's becoming more and more prevalent and more and more obvious that the main motivation of Humanityville is literally the title of this podcast. Humanity is literally wanting to be free to just be. We want to be our true selves. We want to pursue our dreams without restriction, to truly live what we could actually call personal freedom. We want to live in personal freedom.

Speaker 1:

But man oh man, reclamation can be big or little, and I'm going to use a couple of personal examples of stupid choices that I made, decisions that I made to follow the matrix again right over the last year or so, so right before, for an example, right before I went to Florida I, you know, I was, I was convincing myself. Now, this is, this is hindsight learning, but hindsight's 2020, right? So every lesson is a lesson. So don't discount things that you learn on the other side of coming out of whatever it is that you're coming out of. Okay, so lessons can be learned through the good and the bad and everything in between, and one of the things that I did was I let go or I justified something that I had been doing for like 12 or 13 years and I've spoken about it numerous times in earlier episodes and that is just loving who I was becoming in my 50s and observing and actually enjoying and being intrigued with this quote-unquote aging process, and I've shared many times about. You know, I don't care that the world is dying their hair. I really I've earned every one of those gray hairs and I think my gray hair is beautiful.

Speaker 1:

And before I left for Florida, my hair was about down to my derriere, to my boudet, and some wild hair. And I'll tell you what the wild hair is called. It's called insecurity, it's called comparison, it's called oh, and it just dawned on me, compare is sin. So if sin the definition of sin is literally missing the mark, then comparing yourself, teresa Marie, to other people your age who quote unquote look a lot younger. And why do they look younger? Because they are continuing to dye their hair and put their makeup masks on and do all the Matrix merry-go-round things.

Speaker 1:

Well, it was easy for me to point my finger and judge people when I wasn't out in the Matrix world. But you see, before I went to Florida, I got to thinking well, it's a brand new life and I'm going into a brand new way of being and I'm going to help open this wellness center and you know, I wonder what I would look like with my medium brown hair again. Oh, it'd be a nice change. So here it comes, here comes the admittal and then the reclamation. I literally cut 13 inches of hair from my head and my hair is now just down to my shoulders, and I dyed it. Well, I had somebody dye it.

Speaker 1:

And the first time I had somebody dye it I did another foolish thing. I said oh, I've heard such good things about you and you know what. They were all true. This particular individual was absolutely fantastical at color and highlights and all things hair. So as I sat in this person's chair, you know, and was asked well, what do you want to do? Well, I am tired of the gray. First mistake and I just need something different. Second mistake what I needed need something different. Second mistake what I needed was to be more authentic, not to go into the seat of comparison and become like everybody else. But you know I digress.

Speaker 1:

So then the person that was going to quote, unquote, transform me said well, I think it would look really good, platinum. And I was thinking to myself platinum. Well, I've never been blonde and I never wanted to be blonde. But then I said the foolhardy words well, I trust you, just do what you think is best. Just do what you think is best. Error number three so I put the way I look into somebody else's hands and can you see the setup. I ended up saying, oh yeah, well, it's going to take some getting used to, yeah, it's real different. Yeah, I think I'm really going to love it To go out in the car and think, oh my God, what did I just do? I felt like I looked older. I didn't like it at all, but I quote unquote dealt with it for about two months and then I got to Florida and then the peer pressure started.

Speaker 1:

I can remember some of the people I worked with regarding another individual I work with, saying things like well, what are we going to do about her and the way she looks? We're going to have to have her do something with her hair, put it up or do something. And I'm thinking to myself that is so rude and and that is so judgmental and that is so petty. But did I open my mouth in defense? Well, I did. I said well, I think this person is beautiful, just the way they are. And you know, of course, nothing was heard about that. But in my own little head, in my mind, between my ears, what I was hearing was oh, buddy, I need to do something too, because I am not cutting the mustard here. I need to what Conform? We don't want to conform humanity, we want to transform. We don't want to become like everybody else. We want to become our beautiful, unique, authentic selves. Right.

Speaker 1:

But as the story continues, this time I thought I am not going to pay somebody to color my hair a way I don't want, I'm going to go pick out the color myself. Way I don't want, I'm going to go pick out the color myself. So I went to a local Walgreens and spent like $14 on a medium brown hair color and I took it home to my little retreat in Florida and I put it on my head. And as I put it on my head, I was thinking well, why is this like? And as I put it on my head, I was thinking well, why is this like white? It's almost like completely white. You know, usually dye, when you put it on your hair, it starts to turn dark, like the color you want. But as I continued to put this color on my hair, it got lighter and lighter, and lighter and I thought what the heck? And I looked at the color and the color said medium brown. And guess what, what was inside the box was not medium brown folks, and when I get out of the shower I look like a freaking albino. Okay, it was like I had no color on my head. My hair was almost completely translucent white. I could see my scalp through it and I was like, oh my God, what in the heck did I just do? So I put on a hat and I went back to Walgreens and I bought yet another color, dropped another 14 or 15 bucks and came home with a darker shade and came out with a very unnatural looking brown color.

Speaker 1:

And then for the next three months my hair felt like absolute crap. And I might also add that in the big city of Jacksonville, florida, the water is so incredibly bad. Jacksonville has some of the worst city water ever. I had done so much damage to my hair. My beautiful hair that hadn't had color, that was back to its purity, that felt so good, that had life and body to it, was now stripped, was now crispy, was now so damaged that I could wash my hair and, after it dried, I could literally lift up a section of it and it would just stay straight out of my head. That's how incredibly crunchy and bad my hair was. Oh, buddy, yep. So what is Therese Marie doing now? So what is Therese Marie doing now? Six weeks out from returning from Florida and of blonde, from all the sun that I've been in this whole summer, and then it's got shades of my natural medium brown and my gray all coming back in all at once.

Speaker 1:

And I'm going to tell you what my reclamation is. I do not give a flying F what anybody thinks about what's going on on my head. I'm not wearing a hat, I'm not covering it up. I am reclaiming my natural hair color which, by the way, it's getting real gray, and I feel so much better about myself because I don't care if I don't look like every other 64-year-old woman that is too freaking scared. Yeah, I'm calling you to the carpet If you don't think you want to age and you think that you have to stay forever young, well, I am forever young on the carpet.

Speaker 1:

If you don't think you want to age and you think that you have to stay forever young, well, I am forever young on the inside and my body is doing its metamorphosis the way it naturally occurs, and I am going to let it. I'm going to let it naturally go back to gray. I am not going to go back into the matrix program that says anti-aging anything I'm not putting. Well, I've never put the anti-aging creams on my wrinkles. I've earned every one of those little star wrinkles around my eyes and the crinkle on my forehead because I never wear sunscreen or hats in the sun, right?

Speaker 1:

What other personal reclamation do I have going on currently? Well, the other example I want to share is the reclamation of my yards, my flower beds, my vegetable gardens, my berry bushes beds, my vegetable gardens, my berry bushes. Well, in the last two years since I've been gone, you know, when I left my gardens in Tennessee, I had just planted, oh I don't know 12 to 14 different varieties of grapes and berries and goji and elderberry. And, bless my husband's heart, in his transformation process, especially the first year, he could barely, you know, just stay in his own routine because he was going through his dark night of the soul and the last thing Roger was going to do was to keep the gardens up. So guess what Teresa Marie is getting to do now and I must say it is the biggest delight of every day that I get to do it and that is the reclamation.

Speaker 1:

I am reclaiming every flower bed, I am reclaiming my property. And another good example would be about three years ago, there was a section of our yard that we cleared like eight feet out right. I even put up a wire clothesline between two trees to have an additional outdoor clothesline. Because I don't know about you, I absolutely love clothes, especially bedding sheets and blankets that smell so good being hung out on the line. Well, in three years, guess who reclaimed that eight feet of Woods? You got it the woods. The woods not only grew back, but they grew back even thicker in the area that we cleared. So why am I even sharing all of this? Because we need to actually begin to reclaim ourselves. In order to realize our true selves, we have to be willing to live without being dependent on the opinion of others, which is a quote by Bruce Lee.

Speaker 1:

Now I literally made an error choice. I turned back toward the matrix because I was comparing myself with other women who, for whatever reason they have, did not have the courage to become who they were becoming Older, wiser, with gray hair on their head. Some of these women can't leave their house without having their eyebrows drawn on or makeup on, and, oh buddy, they are not going to take a picture. I can remember one of them saying to me Miss Terry, we're taking pictures. Go, put your lipstick on To the woman who's never worn lipstick in her life, I think maybe I tried it on a couple of times and thought, oh, no way, I'm not doing this, you know, it just gets caked on your lip. No, I'm not doing it, but I did. I succumbed. I justified my choice of going back onto that matrix merry-go-round. Oh, and let me just tell on myself further.

Speaker 1:

During that same time period that I quote unquote dyed my hair and you know, the first time it was brown. Oh, it looks so good. And I got so many compliments and, oh, you look so much younger. Oh, and all of it's just BS, folks. It's just BS Because I'm still 64 years old. You know, most 64-year-olds don't have their natural hair coloring anymore. So what is the big deal really, when you think about it? But during that same time period I thought oh, you know, we're getting ready for this grand opening, I'm going to get my nails done and I've always wanted French tips. Now, I thought French tips were just they painted the white on the top of your nails. I had no idea, when I asked for French tips, what they were doing. They're dipping my hands in this stuff and I'm like you know, oh, this is interesting. So this is how you get French tips.

Speaker 1:

Oh yes, some of you people that you know every three weeks go get your nails done, know exactly what was happening. Well, I was getting acrylics put on my nails. I had no freaking clue. Oh, and they look so pretty. And I stared down at them and I thought, oh, wow, look, I have arrived. I man, I just look so cultured and I look so you know, so much more put together this way. And people don't have any clue. And you know, I haven't had my hands in dirt in so long. So, oh, these nails will. They will last about three weeks.

Speaker 1:

Two and a half weeks in, this acrylic stuff started cracking and crackling. And that's when I discovered that it wasn't just regular nail polish. It was layer upon layer of this acrylic crap, this poison that I allowed somebody to put on my fingernails, and by the time it was all picked off, my nails were destroyed. I mean, my nails were in such bad shape that as they would grow, they would curl up and then the nail would just break off up, and then the nail would just break off. Four, almost five months later, my nails are back, and I do have to say that the redemption, the reclamation of my nails has been even better than my hair, because, you know, my hair still has probably another three to six months before it'll completely be back to its original color, which is whatever color that my makeup is in the process of giving me right Now, I don't know. By the time it's over, I might be completely gray. You might not see any brown on my hair, and that's the way it's going to be, you know. And my nails, though, my nails, wow, they are harder. Can you hear me tapping on that? They are harder than they've ever been and my nails are so long and they stay long, so much, shaped, beautifully, reclamation my true self.

Speaker 1:

So if our main motivation, living Bill, is truly to be free to just be who we are, then if we want to live without restriction, if we really truly want to be living in personal freedom, then what we need to do is have courage enough to stand by ourselves, have courage enough to not be dependent on the opinion of others, because, you know, in the big picture, nobody really gives a rip what we do. If we think for a second that anybody is at their house saying, oh my God, did you see their nails? Did you see her hair? Omg, I can't believe. Well, you know what? Let me take that back, because there are people that do that. There are people that judge and point and ridicule and gossip, and those are the people that are not willing to turn around and face their own stuff. But that's not you and I.

Speaker 1:

You and I are like what Bren Brown says. You and I are willing to risk venturing into the wilderness. And what does the wilderness look like? Sometimes it looks like you're the only one in your friend group that is not dying their hair. The wilderness looks like you have decided that dirt under your nails is a good look for you and F the other people who think that they need to go get their nails done.

Speaker 1:

You have decided that wilderness means that you may be becoming yourself all by yourself. And that is very much what happens when you finally eat that bitter red pill and you begin to wake up to the fact that you have been programmed and lied to your whole life and now you're finally willing. You don't care what it takes, you don't care who is going to gossip about you. You don't care about anything to do with the matrix, mary Grant. All you care about is living your authentic self. You are so tired of putting on mask after mask, whatever it is for you. Maybe it's not dying your hair, maybe it is something completely different, maybe it's continuing to go out after work on a Friday with your work people when you don't want to drink any. And you finally decided you know what. This is not doing anything for my life. And if I have to lose this group of friends on a Friday night, if they're going to dog me because I don't want to drink, that is my choice.

Speaker 1:

So those of us that are willing to risk venturing into the wilderness or even becoming your own wilderness oh yeah, baby. How many of you out there listening to Free To Just Be have been in the feel position in the last month? How many of you have had incredible racing thoughts between your ears and you think that you're the only one? How many of you feel like, oh my God, I stopped the world, I want to get off. Guess what Every one of us in Humanityville, at one time or another, has is, or will feel that way. And guess what?

Speaker 1:

The best part about Breanne Brown's quote is that we feel the deepest connection to our true self, and that is what matters most. And the way we get there is being willing to venture into that wilderness, being willing, in whatever way, shape or form it is, to get ourselves off that matrix merry-go-round. That is where true freedom lies, and even William Shakespeare, way back in the day, had it right when he quoted this above all else to thine own matrix, merry-go-round, be true. Oh hell no, to thine own self be true. You, my dearest brother or sister in humanity-ville, you can literally get yourself off that matrix merry-go-round and become more and more authentic. You can reclaim your hair, you can reclaim the yard of your life, you can reclaim whatever it is that you allowed or had ripped from you, or what you chose to give to the matrix. You can take it all back and you can self-actualize because you've discovered that you can no longer play with the masks on.

Speaker 1:

So will you embrace the calm today, will you embrace the silence that we woke up and heard our true selves for the first time? Can you, today, think about what it is that you have done to give yourself away to the matrix? What part of the matrix is not your true, authentic self. Because ours is a battle. It's not for power, it's not for wealth. It is a battle for personal freedom, for the reclamation of our human personalities, and we can do this.

Speaker 1:

Self-awareness helps you to understand who you are, who you're pretending to be. It'll help you understand do they just love you, or is it the mask that you put on every day that they love? Is it time for you to honor your authentic self? Is it time for you to reclaim your soul? Because from a young age, many of us learn to put others' needs above our own, suppress our own feelings, even change parts of who we are, just to feel accepted. That is one of the biggest programs on the Matrix merry-go-round. You will not be accepted if you're your authentic self. What an incredible lie. That is.

Speaker 1:

So, on this Tuesday evening, express yourself tonight unapologetically, consider literally reclaiming yourself, whatever that looks like for you, whatever that looks like for you the reclamation. It's up to you, and you and I can come back home and be free to just be who we are when we recognize that the denial of our true selves is the ultimate problem. That's why we have the itch we can't scratch, that's why we are frustrated. That's why it is better to be yourself, even if it means being alone. It's better to embrace that solitude rather than losing your identity in a crowd that really doesn't care who you are anyway. And remember, authenticity is nothing more than a collection of choices that we get to make every single day. It's about the choice to show up as we really are. The choice to be honest, brutally honest, with nobody but ourselves. The choice to be seen as who we really are.

Speaker 1:

Don't fall back into that trap of the matrix that says, oh, wearing a mask is the best way to show our true selves, because that way everybody's the same and we won't offend anybody. The soul behind the eyes that is the bridge between the past you and the you. You want to be, the authentic you you want to be. Can you walk over that bridge? Can you come back in to the you you've always wanted to be? Because the privilege of a lifetime, said Joseph Campbell, is being who you are. Can you acknowledge and accept all of your emotions for the insights they provide? Can you find your true self? Oh, my goodness, the courage it takes to be ourselves.

Speaker 1:

And if we do that, we will find ourselves in wave after wave of change and we will find our true north, our true direction, because humanity, life, begins at the end of our comfort zones and all this time we were finding ourselves. We didn't even know we were lost. So if you're feeling that itch, if you're feeling that frustration, if you drive home and just think I can't wait to take this bra off, I can't wait to take these work boots off, I can't wait. Why can't you wait? Because you can't wait to get off of that matrix merry-go-round and go into your own quote-unquote safe space.

Speaker 1:

To be yourself and Ralph Waldo Emerson said it great, he said to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. So today, humanity, what will you reclaim? What one little iota today can you put your guard down and invite in that's truly you, instead of spending most of your energy trying to hide your true self and control what the world? You know, that's what we do. We hide ourselves and we try to control the world on the outside, the externals, so that we'll feel better when it's the reverse. We need to go inside and let our true selves out, because then it won't matter what's going on in the external world because we're going to feel so good about ourselves.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I'm going to close with Swami Dehan Gittin's quote, who said an individual who is rooted in his inner self is always, always blissful. So ponder, see this reclamation episode and ask yourself the question am I frustrated or am I blissful? Am I truly my authentic self or am I pleasing everybody else? Am I walking away from the matrix or am I still clinging to the opinion of others? And I love you, humanity, and I hope you will choose to recognize that pain is an opportunity to resurrect our true selves. And so, as you step away from the matrix and head into a quote-unquote wilderness, remind yourself that this is an opportunity. You may be by yourself, but you might become a little bit more authentic, a little bit more you Peace out.