EP136: Reinvention Starts When You Stop Trying to Fit In

In this episode, I’m sharing something that really landed for me while I was forced to slow down after my arm surgery (which, if you know me, you’ll know doesn’t come naturally!)

When I stopped doing, I started seeing. And what I noticed was just how much we all follow the crowd… even when we say we want to stand out.

I talk about why our brains are wired for belonging rather than individuality, how we inherit identities we never consciously chose, and why so many high-performing women reach a point where the life they built no longer feels like it fits.

If you’ve ever felt like you’ve got your life together on paper but still feel a bit disconnected from yourself… this one’s for you.

In this episode I talk about:

-Why fitting in once kept us safe (and why your brain still thinks it does)

- How childhood conditioning shapes the identity you think is “you”

-The difference between the inherited self, the survival self and the designed self

-Why so many brilliant women stay stuck in survival mode

-How reinvention really begins (and why it’s not about fixing yourself)

Some questions I invite you to think about:

-Where might I be fitting in rather than being myself?
-What parts of me are survival patterns rather than who I really am?
 -Who would I be if I trusted myself more?
 -Is there something I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t because it might make me stand out?

The biggest takeaway from this episode:

Reinvention isn’t about becoming someone new.

It’s about recognising what parts of you were built for survival… and deciding what parts of you get to lead now.

Because you were never meant to just fit in.

You were meant to become.

Mentioned in this episode:

My EDIT Your Life: No BS Reinvention Journal a 12-week guided process to help you consciously design the next version of you.

And if this episode resonated with you:

Share it with another woman who might need this reminder too. We rise faster when we stop trying to do this alone.

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🔥 DOWNLOAD FREEBIES TO FUEL YOUR REINVENTION

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Transcript

00:00

Hola. Hola and welcome to the reinvention era podcast, where we take Queenagers, high performing women. People are just ready to be all the things they know they can be, but have been sort of put off when life is fucking lifing, because life does that life, doesn't it? I talking of which, this is my first episode back after my arm. Yes, it is, yes it is true. She is, she is back. She, she, I don't know why I don't like people talking to third person, but I don't know there's something about she, it's bit different than it. I'm not going, Sarah is back. She's back. Queen, she's fucking back. Anyway, I'm waffling so my arm. This is my first episode back after my arm for if you're new here. Welcome. Welcome, welcome. I had a fight with a flip flop over nine months ago now, and two weeks ago, I had a lot of metal put in the arm because it hadn't healed. I've basically been living with a broken arm, and it's my right arm, which I can't do anything with. But anyway, I've now got a load of metal in there, and I've also, well, I don't really understand it, but it's, it's bone graft, human bone graft that come out of a jar. I'm like, I don't even want to know how it got in a jar, or who's processed it in a jar, or what anything that he said it was that or my hip. So I went with the processed chart, jarred human bone who knew? Anyhow? So my arm is fixed. It's two weeks in, and progress seems quite good. So I'm hopeful that we are on the move back to life, life in properly with two arms. Anyhow,

01:58

for those of you that have listened for some time or followed for some time, you will know that something that doesn't come easily to me is resting. I know. I know, right? It really doesn't come easily to me resting. I find it really fucking hard, quite honestly, and I don't know, over the last couple of weeks, it's, it's, it's been a mission, but I've done it, and I'm actually really proud of myself that I've done it. I have rested. Usually I would have been like, still getting back to the hustling, getting back to the doing, and, you know, you know, I recorded the podcast in a couple of days after actually breaking my arm, and I was, like, determined this time to actually rest and recuperate properly. But it's almost like that shower wisdom that you get, isn't it? That you know when you switch off and you're not trying to think about things, you end up thinking about things, you know, like the shower wisdom. You always get great ideas in the shower. You get these downloads, these ideas, you go

03:09

and that's what's happened over the last couple of weeks, while I've been allowing myself to rest, I've had all of these ideas going. And I love that. I love that for me, however, one of the things that was chinging off in my resting mind is what I want to talk about today, and that is essentially how we have learned to follow the Crowd rather than our hearts ourselves, who we are, and what that really means for us as wonderful Queens moving in to our queen Angel years. Yes, it is. So I've been thinking a lot about this. Okay, what I've really noticed when you stop doing and start seeing is how much, just how much we follow the crowd, even the people that are going, Oh, be yourself, or talking about uniqueness and all of that, there's still, like, this weird contradiction, almost like we want to stand out, but we behave in a way that we fit in. We're designed to fit in. Do you know what I mean? So I'm seeing I see online, and I've seen it online quite a lot anyway, but I think it's only over the last couple of weeks that it's really come to me is that we follow all these trends, don't we? We follow these influences. We follow these trends and and something just happens, and it goes viral, and then everyone's doing it right, and you feel a bit of an idiot if you don't follow the crowd almost, and at the same time online, particularly, and I'm. Talking about this in the online world particularly, but it's what's happening in the online world is reflected in the offline world as well. So on. In the online business world, particularly at the moment, there are just everyone. Everyone is talking about personal brands, and it's quite ironic, really, that everyone is talking about the same fucking thing, like they're talking about standing out, but they're all talking about the same fucking thing, but personal brands, and they're sort of saying that you've, you know, the old days it was USP, wasn't it? What's your unique selling point? What's what's personal about you? And saying that even the big brands stand for different things. You know, kind of the ethos of Tesco versus Waitrose, for example, you know what I mean, Aldi, you know their their vibes, their personal brands. So there is a lot about bringing out our uniqueness and what we stand for, and our individuality

06:05

and not following the crowd. And yet, everyone is following the crowd to do that, you know. But what happens is, and I think it makes complete sense, is that we follow the crowd because it's safer to do so our brains are not designed to be authentically unique or whatever, unapologetically ourselves. Our brains aren't designed for that. So it's actually really good and difficult, because our brains are designed for survival. You know, years and years ago, talk about kind of the tribal history,and we had to stay with the tribes. Can you imagine going out and leaving, going out the cave, leaving your tribe behind again? Now, fuck you. I don't want to do what you're doing. I'm going to go and hunt my way, right? You'd have been eaten or killed by another tribe, wouldn't you? You know, see, all those 1000s of years ago, staying with the tribe meant survival, fitting in with the group meant survival, safety, so you didn't do it, because exclusion equals Danger, danger, danger, and our nervous system learned to deal with that and our fight and flight response, whether we run from from danger or Fight danger. That's what we learned from those times. And unfortunately, our brains and our bodies and our nervous systems haven't moved on much. They haven't moved on much. They haven't upgraded, you know, so for us, even though there isn't a danger, it's not in the same way, like you're not going to see a lion in Waitrose at the moment, we react as though it's the same freaking way. Do you know what I mean? Someone unfollows you on Instagram? It's like your nervous system goes, oh my god, she's been she's been disowned from the tribe. Feels like you're gonna freaking die, given in your nervous system, even if someone's just unfollowed you because I don't agree with you, whatever you know, and it's just so interesting watching how these differences play out. Kind of we want to be different, but we want to fit in and and it's just so interesting, and it's so natural, and it's so tribal in nature, and it's physiological, right? It really is.

08:47

But so how do we do that? How do we stand out? Because it's really like the nature of doing it. And for me, I think as well, I found what was really interesting. One of the things with like being adopted actually, because for me, when you when you don't really know where you fully began fight your bloodline and your story and your genetic history and all the rest of it, you become very good at learning how to become. You learn how to adapt, how to read rooms, how to fit in, how to how to shape yourself into whatever feels the fucking safest, right, often at the expense of our own individuality. You know, we've become what's acceptable. I remember, like, even in school, miss, you know, again, it comes from that kind of wanting to be safe. In school, there was, there was, like, a few different groups, like, kind of couple of main groups. Groups, and I never really felt like I fitted in properly to any of them. I was never excluded from the groups as such, like I got on with all the different groups, but I never really fitted into any of them, either, andfor me, I always wanted to fit into, like, the cool group, you know. But I didn't quite fully fit in them. I wasn't quite cool enough, you know. So, like most kids, I was like, maybe, if I just adjust slightly, maybe for wear that, maybe for act like that, maybe for do that. And slowly, without realising I've, like, traded my own individuality for belonging. You know, there was, there was once, and I always remember that everyone was wearing jazz shoes, white jazz shoes, and I was desperate for these jazz shoes. And my parents were like, you know, they'll waste the money anyway. I just wanted these jazz shoes because I thought if I had these dress shoes that everyone else has got, I'm going to feel the same as everybody else, and I'm going to feel pretty, like they look really pretty in their Jazz shoes, and they look really cool in their dress shoes, right? That's the shit that you think as a kid, right? So I saved up for ages to go. I went up to stage door in bexie Heath and bought these jazz shoes, but I still didn't really feel right in them. I didn't, I didn't. My mother was like, my feet were too big. I don't look the same as everyone else wearing them. I don't, but I saw that as a bad thing. I saw that as a bad thing that I didn't fit in. Rather than going, actually, what do I really want to wear? Do I really wear, like, these jazz shoes? Because then, then they're not that great for me. You know, they don't really suit me, but I'm wearing them to try and fit in. And I think that's what a lot of us don't ever really realised that we're we're always trying

12:07

to fit in, because that's what we've learned to do. And I think that's the part that we don't understand, is that we have learned. We've inherited, we've been conditioned into belonging, into how that looks like, what that looks like. And we haven't actually consciously chosen, quite often, who we are. We've just followed like sheep, you know, because no one wants to be that sheep, do they? No one wants to be the black sheep. So it affects how you work, how you have relationships, how you rest, even you know resting, restings for weaker, sweet people, how visible you allow yourself to be, how you show up, how you act, what jobs you do, how successful you allow yourself to be, how much space you take up. All of that generally comes from those early environments where that safety mattered so much more than being authentic, you know, and this is actually something I'm writing about in my book. For those that don't know, I have wanted to be an author for ever since I can remember. I can't remember not wanting to be an author. I learned to read really early about the age of three. My party trick when I was four was spelling gymkhana fucking knob. Anyway, I learned to read, and I love love love stories. I loved books, and always wanted to write absolutely fiction. But here we are. I'm writing a non fiction book, and I love it. I love it, love it, love it. But in the book, I'm talking about the different types of self that we have, like the inherited self, which is kind of the version of you that was built from what you saw, heard and experienced in those early years, because that's when our brain really develops. Your subconscious brain is is there, but your conscious brain doesn't really develop until you're like 789, years old. So everything before then your subconscious brain is like this sponge absorbing everything from around you, whether that's a cultural thing, what country you were born in, what gender you were born in, what what family you were born in, what socio economic status you were born in, all of those types of things, and it all just becomes this kind of almost like programming of how you must think, how you must speak, how you must do, how you must behave, how you must feel, all of those kinds of things. Okay, so that's all the inherited self. And for me, even though I I'm adopted, there's that it's kind of an extra confusion, because I've kind of. Got my genealogical history. And you know, when my birth mother was pregnant with me, I imagine her nervous system must have been off the fucking charts. And I've been born with that nervous system. I've kind of got that from her womb, if you like, not to mention all the genetics and stuff, but in my subconscious brain, I've also got all of the what I saw had experience from my mum and dad. Yes, I'm adopted. Yes, they're my mum and dad. They brought me up. That's a whole other story, but I've got everything my dad, particularly in terms of the academic side and the and the what I had to do, and how I showed up, and all of those kinds of things. That's all part of my inherited self. And then we have the survival self, and that is the version of us that is essentially built to cope with everything in our inherited self. So that's where we get all of those different kinds of self, like the perfectionist, the imposter, the people pleaser, all of those kinds of different selves are born from surviving, protecting ourselves in our survival self, okay? And the thing is, most of us stay there, but we've also inside of us. We've got a suffering self, our queen self, our higher self, whatever you want to call it, our true self, core self. There's so many different names for it, but that's the version of you, who you really, truly are, who you were designed to be, almost but didn't fulfil. And then we have my beautiful my favourite, the design self, which is the version of you that you choose intentionally, with design consciously construct, the version of you that now lives for all of those other selves, right? But most people never move past survival self, not because they can't, not because they can't, but because they never realise that they can choose. Right? Most people are almost living in a psychological house that they inherited.

17:20

Right? The beliefs were already there in the wallpaper, the rules were already written in the brickwork and the structure, the furniture was already arranged, and this house has been built based on everything you've inherited and everything you're surviving, and it's all there, right? But nobody ever fucking told you you can redecorate. You know you're allowed to redecorate your psychological house, mind blown. You can knock that whole fucking house down and build it if you want to. But nobody ever tells us that. Do they we learn about Pythagoras serum? Do we learn about this shit? No, we don't. Well, you can learn now love. So for me, reinvention is that point where you can realise I might have inherited this goddamn fucking shit hole of a house, but I get to decide how I live in it. I get to decide how it looks moving forward, right? And that's where we start to move away from this, almost that herd mentality. That's That's what essentially we're talking about, isn't it? It's herd mentality. It's basically when your brain does something that it assumes must be right, not because it is right, but because it feels safer, like it's that psychological phenomenon, like people conform their behaviours, their beliefs, their decisions, to that of a large group, quite often neglecting their own, like knowing almost that sounds a bit like woo, woo, but it's kind of you neglecting that, and that's from, yeah, we have FOMO, don't we? We have such fear of missing out, or we just have a need to fit in, right? And that even shows, you know, I've talked about social behaviour a little bit in terms of social media behaviour and the fashion trends and all of that, but it's even things like slang. Like, I never understand, where were words? A slang word becomes popular. How does that happen? Like, you know, one person says a word to mean something, and suddenly everyone knows what it means. And you know, the kids of today, they all have this popular slang, yeah, when, when I was a kid of that day, we had slang and all that our parents didn't know what it meant. And now the kids of today now think we're really uncool. Yeah. Know, popular slang, where does that come from? Fascinating. But like things like that, like even things like the financial markets, you know, they're getting, buy, buy, buy, sell, sell, sell. And it's like, oh my god, if everyone's selling, it must be amazing. We've got to sell so sell like and they almost always Panic set. And not that I know about financial markets, please don't get me.

20:20

But it's that kind of thought process. It's like we've got to do what everyone else does, even like in emergency situations. You know, in a crisis, people will follow the crowd to the exit, even if it's not even the actual safest one to go to. I found this particularly in few years back, God, a lot years back now, I hope for 10 years ago, I think I was working in a government organisation, shall we say, in Millbank in London, right next to its government building, building next to the houses Parliament, and a bomb went off. And it was quite fascinating. Actually, it was fascinating watching people and how it was quite high up on in this building, and watching how it was kind of everyone running, like, you just joined that crowd. How do you know you're not running towards the bomb? The only reason you kind of did know is because journalists and emergency services people were going the other way. They were going into the crisis. So you kind of go, they're going there, so we're going there, like, Do you know what I mean? It's quite fascinating. And it's almost like that group think mentality, which happens a lot in politics and religion and all of that, right? And it's really, really hard to resist that herd mentality, that sheep mentality, isn't it? It's really hard to be the black sheep. It's got such negative connotations to stand out. But that's where I think people lose themselves. I do think that's where people lose themselves, you know. And even our morality can get outsourced to the fucking crowd. What is that around, you know? And I just think, I don't know, sitting looking say while I've been messing over the last couple of weeks, just looking at like the trends and the way things are and people's thought processes. And it's just really made me go, I don't know, the older I get, the fuck it 50s, as I call it, the more I just want to be myself, the less interested I am in doing things the same way as everyone else. I know. It's that, you know, it's kind of that. I think one of the things that's really stuck out for me is that personal brand thing. Let's say everyone is talking about personal brands in the same way, and he kind of like you're talking about standing out in the same way that everyone else is talking about standing out. But it doesn't make that sense, and that's where I really struggle with that often, the dichotomy, that duality, like it can be both. I know it can be and but it doesn't always feel like that. And I think the more I look at it and think about it, the more that I feel I don't want to do things the same way as everyone else does them. I don't, and it might work for you, but that doesn't work for me. So and I think particularly in this kind of time where we've got a lot more neurodivergence being recognised, how are we doing that? Like, where is it okay to be different, and where is it not okay to be different? And I feel like it comes back to something I've talked about before on the podcast, but it's so relevant about this whole like that we're one in 400 trillion like the the our great, great, great, great, great grandma's particular Egg of 1000s merged with this great granddad's sperm of 1000s, and that particular egg and that particular sperm created their child, who then went on to meet another child from a completely other different line. And we got all these kind of lines coming together and mixing all these genes and things so the odds, people of the bods, the researchers have worked out that the odds of each one of us being born exactly as we are with the exact genes and the exact point in history, exact time we were born, and all of the rest of it, is one in 400 trillion. So.1,000,000,000,001 in 400 fucking trillion.

25:06

So we're all fucking black sheep. We are. So why do we feel this need to follow the crowd? Yes, I know it's about being safe in our brains, but all I see is now that most people are spending their entire lives trying to become slightly edited versions of everyone else you know. And I just think I don't know. Maybe, maybe we need to ask ourselves some better questions, like, not how do I fit in, but who do I want to be? Who do I want to be at the end, at the end of it,  if nobody was watching, if nobody was judging, if nobody had expectations, if it didn't feel so damn unsafe, who would I become? Who would you become? Because it's really important to think about. Is there something that you've always wanted to do but you didn't because it might have made you a bit different, and that's squeaky bum time. Oh, we don't want to be different away. But then we're foregoing that opportunity to do something we really, really want to do. And look, I'm there with the best of them. I've told you about me jazz shows, but I've done it so much over the years, I've conformed to what people have told me is successful, what type of told me is the right thing to do, and all of that, even when it's felt I don't know if I want to do it that way. You know, all the businesses things I keep being told what to do, this is the strategy. This is that hasn't worked for me. I don't want to do it that way. I want to do it my way. Thanks. And I think that's part of being the more confidence in designing myself, who I am, Queen in being a bit different. So I think it's just really important. So I just wanted to talk today about some ways in which that we can start to recognise where we might be conforming and where we might be almost sacrificing our own judgement, our own individuality, to fit in, and where we might want to change that. So I think the first part of that is always going to be about self awareness. It's always going to be thinking about, what are your beliefs, your principles, your values, your preferences, your likes, your dislikes. What are they?

27:49

And are your behaviours reflecting your genuine Queen self? Or are you being swayed by external pressure? You know, so first off, it's about that real self awareness and asking yourself where this might be influencing you. And then once you've done that, is to start thinking more critically, because that's something I've not done over the years. Historically, I've not questioned it, I've not questioned popular opinion. I've not questioned the trends. I've not weighed up the pros and cons before making decisions. I've just kind of gone with it, but actually those strong critical thinking skills that really helps you resist that herd mentality and go, no, actually, that's not, that's not what I want. That's not right for me. That might be right for you. I'm not saying it's wrong right for you. It's not right for me, you know, and within that as well. I think it's really important to be uncomfortable with the uncertainty of it, because sometimes it does feel squeaky bum time. It does feel really dangerous. It does feel as though there's a lion wandering straight towards us, ready to bite her head off. It feels like that because that's our brain and our body is telling us that it's not safe. We have to sometimes get out of our comfort zone. It's called the comfort zone for a reason. It's freaking comfy. It's comfy in there. It's like all the dune vase. It's got all the bean bags. It's lovely in the comfort zone. Thank you. But, and if you're happy in your comfort zone, you're happy following the trends, that's that's great, you do you, but if you do want to be something more, something different, and you've got this urge inside of you to do something, then that means you do have to be a little bit uncomfortable and it feels unsafe.

30:00

Yeah, so we have to be quite comfortable with being uncomfortable. Does that make sense? Comfortable with being uncomfortable? We have to learn again to trust ourselves, the self trust in this, and that's where the confidence comes from. Confidence is the self trust building those small decisions and making decisions independently of everyone else, and going questioning and doing something different because you you're trusting yourself to be able to make those decisions and not needing to be it that follow the crowd. You you trust yourself to be the black sheep. Because it doesn't matter being the black sheep is actually quite cool. I think Black Sheep are much better than white sheep. I always said I wanted a black sheep in my garden when we lived in the big house, when I was married, I wanted to black sheep. You know? Why not? Why she I want a black sheep. Thank you very much. Anyway, all of that is to say essentially that reinvention is not about becoming someone new completely. It's just about asking yourself, what parts of you were survival parts? What parts of you have followed? The rest of the sheep followed the crowd? What parts of you have you been surviving in, protecting yourself in, and then actually, what parts of you are actually you? What parts of your queen self, your sovereign self, what parts of you would you design in your ultimate, best level self? What parts of you aware and really, really thinking about that in your reinvention life, lives, life knocks us sideways. Sometimes it can be really fucking shit. I, you know, with there's so much awful things going on in the world, and there's, you know, paradoxically, shitty things going on in each of our lives. Life does life. But that doesn't mean to say that you can't still be you within that, and trust yourself and love yourself within that. So the real work for me on reinvention isn't about necessarily even finding yourself. It's about giving yourself the permission to just be, to exist without everyone else fucking deciding who you should be, who you are, because at some point you've got to decide that. At some point you've got to go, am I living a life that fits me, or is this a life that fits expectations, fits everyone else, and that decision, that's that's you, that's where your next era starts. My laugh, because you were never meant to just fit in one in 400 trillion you were meant to become. And I think that's the thing for some, most of us, at some point, we've built this life that works. But does it actually work? Not so much.

33:24

And that's all I want you to take away today. Where are you being true to yourself, and where are you just following the crowd? And I think if you can just start thinking critically about that, it will really help you to design the next version of you. Also, while I've been recuperating, I did this before the surgery, before the OP, I've created a guided journal. It's called edit your life, no bullshit, reinvention journal. It's available on Amazon everywhere, and there's a hardback version and a paperback version. It's a 12 week guided journal, and it's looking at exactly this, designing your life yourself, as to what you want and what works for you. So do check that out on Amazon as well. I'm going to leave a link in the show notes for that. It's so worth doing it. It's kind of a very simple, very quick morning and evening process, a little bit of groundwork, but very simple morning and evening, very quick. It's not going to like take hours of sitting there writing your entire life story. It's very quick, it's very simple. It's designed to fit in with your life, but helps you design who you become. So do check that out queen, because it is so worth it, even though I say so myself. So that is all for me. This week, I'm going off to be my only black sheep with me fucking still. Broken arm with metal mid dodgy bone in my arm. I have enjoyed chatting to you so much today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. As always. Get in touch with any comments, questions, anything you want covered on the pods. As always, I'm here for you. I'm here to serve you my love, because I think so much that we are one in 400 trillion each one of us, I call myself the queen of reinvention. Every single one of us is the fucking queen. But are we allowing ourselves to wear the crown? That's what I'm here for. So do let me know if there's anything you need from me, my queen, and I will be back in your beauts badass earbuds again next week for more from the reinvention era, loads of love bye.