If you're a person who wants fulfillment, if you want satisfaction, if you want a sense of completion, yet never complete fulfillment in your life, if you want to create, if you want empowerment, if you want to empower others, if you want to inspire the people around you and breathe life into the spaces that you walk into, then this episode is for you. In today's episode, I explore how to be yourself.
We explore how fragmentation happens, my story of fragmentation, and how to create wholeness. I offer a perspective on being yourself that is likely different than what you’ve heard before, and it is one of the most important things that has propelled me into a life of internal freedom, full expression, and fulfillment.
Toward the end, I explore and address some of the common struggles people have with being themselves. My hope is that you walk away from this episode with clarity on how to begin creating this for yourself.
Connect with Flynn:
Submit your written reviews to THIS form to be entered into a giveaway to win a 30 min session with me! We'll pull 1 winner at the end of the month.
If you're a person who wants fulfillment, if you want satisfaction, if you want a sense of completion, yet never complete fulfillment in your life, if you want to create, if you want empowerment, if you want to empower others, if you want to inspire the people around you and breathe life into the spaces that you walk into, then this episode is for you. In today's episode, I explore how to be yourself.
We explore how fragmentation happens, my story of fragmentation, and how to create wholeness. I offer a perspective on being yourself that is likely different than what you’ve heard before, and it is one of the most important things that has propelled me into a life of internal freedom, full expression, and fulfillment.
Toward the end, I explore and address some of the common struggles people have with being themselves. My hope is that you walk away from this episode with clarity on how to begin creating this for yourself.
Connect with Flynn:
Submit your written reviews to THIS form to be entered into a giveaway to win a 30 min session with me! We'll pull 1 winner at the end of the month.
[00:00:00] Flynn: Hello and welcome to the Flynn Skidmore podcast. My goal is to help you become exactly who you want to be. We are here to help you take your biggest, boldest, most beautiful vision for life And turn that vision into reality. Welcome back to the Flynn Skidmore podcast. Today, we are speaking about one of my favorite topics ever.
[00:00:29] Flynn: It is so near and dear to my heart. Why it's so hard to be yourself, the value of becoming yourself and how to become more of yourself. I'm going to share a bit of my story. In my experience, going from a fragmented version of me to a wholer version of me, and then I'm going to explain what it means to be yourself.
[00:00:51] Flynn: Like how do you even answer the question? Who am I? Who do I want to be? Am I being myself? Is this the real me or is this who I think I should be? And then I'm going to go over [00:01:00] some common obstacles and forms of resistance to being your full self, such as thinking that the real you isn't desirable, what if you're not relatable, I'm going to help you process those things so that you can dissolve those barriers in your process of being the fuller you.
[00:01:16] Flynn: Now before I go into my story. Why would you even want to be the real you? What's the value in that? If so much of the world is, I'm using quotes, fake, why do you have to be the one that's the real you? It's such a great question, actually. I love that question because It challenges us to take a look at the assumptions that we're making.
[00:01:39] Flynn: And the last thing I want to do is operate with the assumption that it's a good thing to be yourself, or it's the right thing to be yourself. I am the last person in the world to tell anyone you need to be yourself. That's what you should do. That's what your Dharma is. That's what your calling is.
[00:01:57] Flynn: Like I'm, that is not what I'm here. I'm not [00:02:00] here to convince you to do it. But what's the value of being yourself? If you're a person who wants fulfillment, if you want satisfaction, if you want a sense of completion, yet never complete fulfillment in your life, if you want to create, if you want empowerment, if you want to empower others, if you want to inspire the people around you and breathe life into the spaces that you walk into.
[00:02:30] Flynn: In the pursuit of becoming that thing, you will learn to become yourself. So it's not like becoming yourself is the mission. It's not like it's the primary objective. It's the thing that happens in the pursuit of fulfillment. If you successfully pull off a pursuit of fulfillment it's the thing that seems to happen.
[00:02:51] Flynn: Now, do you have to want to be fulfilled a hundred percent? No. If you want to be frustrated and [00:03:00] dissatisfied and disempowered, that, that is a hundred percent. Okay. Those are some of the options that are available to you. Now, my guess would be that you wouldn't consciously choose those options. If you perceive that you had an abundance of options, any option available to you, on the one hand, you have immense wellbeing.
[00:03:18] Flynn: On the other hand, you have immense disempowerment. My guess is that you would pick the wellbeing one. A lot of the times people resist fulfillment or resist becoming themselves because. They don't perceive that the wellbeing option is actually an option for them. So if you don't perceive that's actually available for you, then of course you reject that and then take on the identity of being okay with being unfulfilled this what we're here to do is not to force you or anyone to choose something that you don't want to choose or want to resist.
[00:03:52] Flynn: I'm just here to give you options. I'm here to speak about what's available for you. If you'd [00:04:00] like, and then tell you a little bit about what I find to be the most helpful in the pursuit of becoming the thing that's available, if you want to become that thing it's so important. I really want to emphasize this approach.
[00:04:12] Flynn: It's a very non dogmatic approach. It's one that. It's paired with immense acceptance. If you don't need to change anyone, if you don't need anyone to want to be something other than what they want to be, and you truly accept them, that comes from a place of you knowing in your bones that you are becoming who you want to be.
[00:04:35] Flynn: So therefore you don't need anyone else to be anything other than who they want to be. Except if they want to pursue something or evolve in a new way, then you can support them. That comes from something that we can call being yourself or becoming yourself. And I want that for you. I imagine if you're here, that's like an experience you want to have, like true, genuine, Thorough acceptance of others, true [00:05:00] capacity to support and encourage, but not need to force anyone or anything to be any different than what it is.
[00:05:06] Flynn: And I explain this because that what I'm talking, what we're talking about here is an essential component of being yourself, because if you're relating to other people that way, not needing them to be anything other than what they are, it lets us know that you're relating to yourself that way. And if you're relating to yourself that way, with that level of.
[00:05:26] Flynn: Unconditional acceptance. We know that you're in the process of becoming yourself. That's like a, it's a marker of it. It's a trait. So a little bit about my story as the fragmented version of me into it's not like wholeness is ever complete, like maybe in death it is. Maybe at the end of the universe, it is.
[00:05:44] Flynn: I don't really know. It, so it's not something that I think is ever complete, but I think it's the most worthwhile journey that there is, I. I guess really from, I think, one of the, one of the first major incidents of [00:06:00] fragmentation that I experienced was.
[00:06:03] Flynn: When I was 10 years old, I was hanging out on my block with my friend, Brandon. And I was one of the only white kids in my neighborhood. And my block was right smack dab in the middle of three different project houses in New York city. This is in Fort green, Brooklyn. And this was a time where we're like in the beginnings of my neighborhood, gentrifying it's starting to happen.
[00:06:32] Flynn: And there's I became more aware of it a couple of years later, but frustration that white people are moving in and driving up the prices and changing the culture there, which. I 100 percent understand. I really wasn't aware of that when I was 10 years old. I just had my friends who were on my block and we were friends and we skateboarded together and built ramps and built basketball hoops and played baseball and wiffle ball nonstop.
[00:06:58] Flynn: We just played in the streets nonstop. Like [00:07:00] we were just having fun on the street. One of my favorite things that we would do, we would build a BMX ramps. We'd like, if we somehow found plexiglass, which is, if you don't know, it's like a flexible glass material that can hold a lot of weight. We would we would go to the tire shop and sometimes the tire shop around the corner would have, like spare tires that they didn't need and they throw out. So we would snag two of them. I can't remember if we would steal them or ask for them, but we would get them and we'd put these two tires side by side and then we would put a plexi, a piece of plexiglass right there. And when you took a bike or a skateboard off of it, it turned into a ramp and would launch you like, that's what we were doing.
[00:07:37] Flynn: That's how we're spending our lives. And I'm 10 years old. I I'm hanging out with my friend Brandon on the block. And then my mom asked me to go around the corner and pick up her dry cleaning from her, which I was so annoyed about. So go around the corner, pick up her dry cleaning. I'm on my BMX bike.
[00:07:56] Flynn: I throw the dry cleaning over my shoulder. I'm, we're like [00:08:00] walking it back as Brandon is walking next to me. And this group of kids probably 10 to 15 kids. I saw them walking down the street towards us. And at the time I didn't have the context to understand that meant like something to look out for.
[00:08:17] Flynn: We were just walking and they ended up shouting at us. And honestly, the way that I was thinking was, okay, Brandon is black. All these kids are black. They must know each other. They must be friends. So it's all good. And then I saw like rocks started to fly by our heads. And Brandon was like, I'm going to go inside.
[00:08:33] Flynn: I'm going to get my dad. And it's cause his dad was this like a super, super tough, intimidating Jamaican guy from Jamaica. So Brandon goes inside and naively with, I don't know. I never, I say that word with naivety and whatever. I'm sitting on my bike right in front of his house and this group of like 10 to 15 kids, they were probably anywhere between 14, 15, 16.
[00:08:56] Flynn: They just beat the shit out of me, [00:09:00] so badly on the floor, stomping me out, kicking me in the ribs, in the face and all that stuff. And I, I went over to my dad and they like chased the kids down and all that stuff. It was this first moment. In my life where I realized I realized that there, there were dangers that I might not be aware of.
[00:09:21] Flynn: I realized the danger of innocence and I can remember making a choice to know to never be vulnerable or innocent again after that experience. And I think that was probably one of the first experience in my life that started to fragment me that started to make it. So it was like, okay, I can't be this like ramp making like dirty skinned knee kid.
[00:09:48] Flynn: Who's like stealing our dad's tools to build ramps and just be joyful and playful. Like I have to be aware of things. I have to be, I'm now aware of my whiteness. I'm [00:10:00] now aware of. Racial tension between white people and black people in my neighborhood. I'm now aware of these dynamics. I actually remember understanding it.
[00:10:07] Flynn: I remember speaking with my parents being like, yeah, I actually, I get it. I get why kids would want to beat me up in our neighborhood. I get what I represent as whiteness, which is pretty cool. Like being 10 years old and having that perspective. But I didn't know I had to be on the lookout for those things before.
[00:10:22] Flynn: And I imagine as I'm sharing this story, you can remember in your lives, like some of the first moments where you became fragmented, where you learned that like your innocence, your being naive, wasn't going to work. You have to break yourself. You have to break your joy and start to be on the lookout for certain things.
[00:10:39] Flynn: And after that experience, I then started, I remember I started to consciously develop a personality and a persona of. Toughness, I learned that it wasn't safe for me to be this like bundle of innocent joy that I had to appear tough. I had to be on the lookout, cultivate a persona and a personality that would ensure that those [00:11:00] kinds of things wouldn't happen to me anymore.
[00:11:02] Flynn: At least I wouldn't be blindsided. Like no one was going to sweep the rug out from under my feet. And I lived so much of my life fragmented. Really up until I was about 27, 26, something like that. No actually like 28. So I'm in this relationship at 28. I had lived so much of my life until that point fragmented.
[00:11:26] Flynn: Like I didn't know how to be the full me in any one setting. Everyone was getting this different version of me, this persona that I thought was going to be successful in that. Particular setting, and I'm calculating the dangers and the threats and what people need for me. And I'm assuming that I'm not likable or I'm not a good person.
[00:11:46] Flynn: So I have to try and figure out how to appear as a good person and be likable and all that stuff. I'm trying to create safety with this fragmentation. But the truth is it's just creating this life that I'm not happy about. Like I, I'm, I [00:12:00] don't feel like I actually have autonomy or agency.
[00:12:03] Flynn: Like I've actually made a choice about who I am and what I really want. It seems everything is a survival strategy. This relationship is a survival strategy. This job is a survival strategy. This, these friendships are survival strategy. And in all these different places, I need to be a version of myself.
[00:12:19] Flynn: That's like the thing that's going to make that thing work, but that thing doesn't actually work as a reflection or a representation of the whole me. It only works in order to maintain this fragmented version of me. And so I'm not connected with what I actually like, what feels good for me, what feels correct, what's right, my taste, my preferences, any of that.
[00:12:39] Flynn: It's just like, how do I make this work? Because this is the only option I have and whatever this thing is, this relationship, whatever is scarce. So if I lose this, then I have no idea who I am or what I'm going to have. So I may as well just figure out how to uphold this. That's like the energy of so much of my life.
[00:12:57] Flynn: I was looking, as I look back on it, even as I think [00:13:00] speaking about it now, like I didn't even know that liking something. And making decisions based on what I like is an option. I didn't even see that as an option. It wasn't like I was rejecting that. I just didn't even see that as an option, but it started to slowly build.
[00:13:18] Flynn: One of the biggest things was with creating my practice and my business and using that in order to propel myself into living a life that I really wanted to live filled with days that I want. You've probably heard me say summer camp life, like sports all the time, creating, learning. I started to realize, oh, I like this and I want to build a life from this.
[00:13:36] Flynn: So I'm starting to build momentum with that. So I'm in this relationship 28. I might've been 29 actually. Now the person who I was the least fragmented with, maybe let's describe it as my whole self. My sister, Abby, she's five years younger than I am. And in the apartment that we grew up in, in Brooklyn, like really beautiful home.
[00:13:59] Flynn: My [00:14:00] parents have incredible taste. We grew up on the garden apartment of a Brownstone in Fort green, which means like the first floor. And it's like a, like halfway underneath the sidewalk level. So tiny spaces, like one and a half bedrooms. And I, we grew up with me on a bunk bed on top of Abby, right next to my parents room where you're like, Almost in a closet.
[00:14:23] Flynn: And in this tiny space, Abby and I became best friends. So close to each other. And yeah, like with her, I always got to be this version of me that I didn't show the rest of the world. Like she would make me climb in a. Cardboard boxed and take a video of me and the cardboard box would fall over and I'd be stuck in there.
[00:14:45] Flynn: That's who I was with her and the rest of the world. I was like smart, like spiritual like deep guy. And it, it just didn't feel good, but it felt so good to be this full expression of me with her. [00:15:00] Like funny, playful, goofy, silly. I could also be smart and insightful sometimes.
[00:15:06] Flynn: Like I'm a huge support system for her, like huge emotional support for her, but it's not like through the lens of this fragmented, trying personality. It's like. Being how we would describe as being myself and it felt so good, but I, it didn't even, for most of my life, it didn't even seem like it was an option for me to be that version of myself outside of my relationship with my sister.
[00:15:31] Flynn: Like I wasn't even considering that, Oh, maybe that being that version of me is going to be the thing that's going to make me the most successful. It wasn't even a. Thought it was just it was just like appear a certain way, apply for a PhD in neurology, even though you like got a 45 in chemistry class just to have a PhD and appear smart.
[00:15:52] Flynn: Like it was all about trying to appear a certain way that was, that I hoped was going to match what I saw as my potential [00:16:00] without actually like taking the steps and becoming the person. I'm in this relationship 29. That's the official call. I was 29 and I knew that this relationship with this person was the continuation of this same pattern.
[00:16:16] Flynn: And the way to describe this pattern of fragmentation and romantic relationships is like the other person has two to three, to four to five traits that I value that I really like, but I don't. Think that I can be them, or I don't think that I'm going to be able to effortlessly attract these traits into my life forever.
[00:16:40] Flynn: They're scarce traits and it's, so it's like when these scarce traits come into my field, then of course I have to like cling on to them, but in the pursuit of clinging on to these. Two to five scarce traits. I'm being the fragmented version of myself. I'm not giving this person the full [00:17:00] truth of what I like, what I dislike, like being the full me, I'm giving them a version of me that's going to work in order for me to get access to the scarce resource of the two to five traits that I do value, but I'm seeing them as scarce and I need them from this person.
[00:17:17] Flynn: The relationship is inherently depleting because. It's not this other person's fault, but the relationship work in order to make the relationship work, it requires me to be a fragmented version of myself. And the fragmentation is inherently depleting and disempowering. And again, it's not this other person's fault.
[00:17:36] Flynn: I'm sure on some level, we're both making an unconscious choice to remain as the fragmented versions of ourselves, even if we're consciously saying we're pursuing wholeness. I was living in Philly at the time, Abby, my sister comes to visit and we all have dinner together and it was not a good experience.
[00:17:54] Flynn: Me, Abby and this woman I was in a relationship with, it was not a good [00:18:00] experience. Like not good vibes. And my sister and I, like when the vibes are on point, which they always are when we're. hanging when we're together, like the best jokes of all time, incredible banter, like making fun of me.
[00:18:15] Flynn: She's an expert at making fun of me and like PhD level making fun of me. It's so good. And the vibe was just not that I don't even want to tell you what the vibe was. It was not good. After the person who I was in a relationship dating at the time she left to go home and I'm sitting in the living room with my sister, Abby, and she starts crying because she really did not like the version of me that she saw and experienced.
[00:18:44] Flynn: Like it wasn't the whole me and it made her cry. And at that point. There was always, there was already so many rocky, depleting, dramatic things going on in the relationship. So many things and I was clinging on to it because I don't know, I thought it [00:19:00] was scarce. I thought I wouldn't become who I'm meant to be.
[00:19:03] Flynn: So I like better cling on to these things from another person. It was already clear to me that this relationship probably wasn't going to work out. And then Abby crying was the final straw for me. I was like, all right this is not. Going to be the thing that, that I can do anymore. And so that in that moment, I was like, okay here's what I'm learning in this experience.
[00:19:24] Flynn: I know that in this relationship, I'm the fragmented version of myself. When I'm with my sister, Abby, I know I'm a more. Full version of myself. I've never until this point committed to being the version of me that I am with Abby, with the rest of the world, just showing the rest of the world that likes funny, silly, goofy, playful version of me.
[00:19:47] Flynn: I've never showed that to the rest of the world. Abby is really fucking cool. Like she's like cool. Like air, she wore, she's like wearing air force ones and [00:20:00] like chewing a massive amount of bubble gum with gold hoop earrings when she's in fifth grade. Like she's cool to her core, New York city, cool girl.
[00:20:10] Flynn: And hangs out with her friends are all like New York city, cool kids. So in my mind, I'm like, all right. If this person who's cool girl thinks that like the version of me that she likes is this one that I think I'm supposed to hide away from the rest of the world, what if I just start showing that to the rest of the world, like what's going to happen?
[00:20:33] Flynn: I'm already like. Pretty frustrated with life and disempowered and terrified. I'll never fulfilled my potential. So what if I just fucking send it? What if I just do it and go for it and in business and in content. And when I meet people what if I make it all about using how I feel when I'm with Abby as my compass and investing in people, places, relationships, where it's easy for me to be that version of [00:21:00] myself.
[00:21:00] Flynn: And so that's the commitment that I made. And what you see now in how, in what in me and the content I create and all that it's a reflection of this practice of being the version of myself that I am when I'm with Abby, it's an amplification of it. It's, yeah. It's learning how to amplify that energy, learning how to make the harness, that energy and make it even more powerful.
[00:21:26] Flynn: Make it even more potent, make it even more clear. I find environments where I'm not able to be that. And rather than blaming the environment, I'm looking internally and asking myself what are the parts within me who are scared to be that version of myself here? And what happens if I lovingly relate to those parts of me and.
[00:21:44] Flynn: Okay. Actually, and practice being that version of me here, what happens? Will the environment evolve with me? Will the environment be able to support it if it's happening in me internally, or does this environment have limitations? And I really can't be that version of myself in this [00:22:00] relationship, this friendship, this environment, this business relationship, and that's okay.
[00:22:03] Flynn: That's all good. There's just not resonance here. I know how I want to feel. And if an environment or another person doesn't. Want to harmonize with that resonance, doesn't want to feel similarly, like that's okay because I know that I'm going to continue for the rest of my life, harnessing, tapping into and increasing the amplification of this particular energy.
[00:22:30] Flynn: Now let's talk about this thing. Like how do you answer the question? Who am I? And I, I don't even know what my real self is. Is it the real me or what I think I should be? I totally understand those questions. And I used to ask those questions myself until I started to apply this model that, that I mentioned earlier is what I think is the best in the world, which I'm beginning to call the external to internal model, which is.
[00:22:56] Flynn: Understanding what you actually want in your [00:23:00] body, like what feeling do you want so that you can get out of your head asking questions like, who am I supposed to be? Is this who I should be? Is this the real me? Because those are all intellectualizing analytical questions, which I am. It's deeply familiar with.
[00:23:13] Flynn: I'm not like trying to shame that. I know that so well. I also know the power of understanding that the answers you're looking for don't come in the form of those questions. The answers you're looking for come in the form of what experience do you want to have in your body? And in this process of sharing this model with you, I want to help you get clear, or I want to help you sharpen your vision of who and what you want to become.
[00:23:40] Flynn: I want to help you understand what that is. Now, I personally don't think a lot of people will be like the, who you are is the pure childlike essence of you before you were formed. Fragmented and broken and the world broke you and all that kind of thing. I don't think of it [00:24:00] like that. I don't find that very helpful.
[00:24:02] Flynn: I feel like that's a glorification and romantization of the child energy. And I love child. Like I love playfulness. It's my favorite thing in the world. And I think being able to access it is like part of my secret sauce and what really contributes to my success. But I don't think that that I just don't like the energy of like glorifying something and holding one thing as sacred like the childhood innocence as sacred while something else is not sacred.
[00:24:33] Flynn: I don't like that. I like seeing everything as sacred. So it's not to me, it's not who's the truth of you before society broke you. It's not that. It's what do you want to experience? So in the experience with Abby, for instance if I were asking like, is this the real me? Is this the true me?
[00:24:54] Flynn: I need to be the real me. I need to be the true me. I'd be remaining in my head, still confused, not [00:25:00] knowing how to replicate the experience, not knowing and not having the information that I would need in order to know if I'm actually achieving the thing. thing that I want to achieve, which we can describe as being myself.
[00:25:12] Flynn: So let's break it down with Abby. When I'm with Abby, like when I'm with Abby, my reference point, what am I experiencing? Okay. I'm laughing a lot. I do like funny pranks and she records me and it makes her crack up. And then on my birthday, every year, she reposts the most embarrassing things of all time and she loves that.
[00:25:35] Flynn: Okay. So there's I'm doing embarrassing. Things and it, we're laughing a lot and it's funny. We're also having conversations that are intellectually stimulating yet. There were like masterfully weaving jokes in between, not needing it to be serious. Okay. Let me compare that to like intellectually stimulating conversations with.
[00:25:55] Flynn: other people where I end up feeling like restricted and depleted because I'm trying to [00:26:00] like debate Obama's education policy when I don't really know it that well, I just heard one friend speak about it and then I'm trying to appear to know more about Obama than other people. Like, how do I feel when I do that?
[00:26:11] Flynn: Okay. That leaves me feeling like anxious in my head. Rigid. I like, I don't, that's not what I don't want that. I want this. Other thing that I experienced with Abby, where it's like more curiosity and playful, not pretending to know. Okay. So when I'm having that experience, what's in my body, what's happening there.
[00:26:31] Flynn: Okay. Let me pay attention to this. It's I feel light. I feel open. There's delight. There's joy. There's curiosity. There's wonder. There's confidence. There's. All these things. Okay. Now I'm understanding in my body the thing, the feelings, the sensations in my bodies, and these descriptors like delight, joy, this is what I want.
[00:26:55] Flynn: This is what I actually want. And the thing called being [00:27:00] myself is not really the thing that I want. What I want are these experiences in my body. Okay. Got it. Now, what I'm going to start to do is instead of focusing on this question, how to be myself, how to be yourself, is this the real me? Is this the real me?
[00:27:16] Flynn: I'm just going to ask what do I want? I want joy, delight, curiosity. I want fun, intellectual stimulation. I want playfulness. I want like funny embarrassment. I want these things. I want these things in my body. Now I'm going to take a look at my life. If these are the things that I want in my body.
[00:27:37] Flynn: Where in my life have I built these things? Like where have I had these experiences and created dynamics and patterns through relationships, through like how I set up physical environments and all these things that are actually harboring and harnessing those energies for me, like what relationships in my life are actually [00:28:00] about lightness, joy, playfulness fun, embarrassment, and.
[00:28:05] Flynn: And what's the truth of what I've really built my life with. Like when I look around at the ecosystem of my life, like my relationship with my body, my physical environment, my relationships, my career, the, how I'm making money. What is the energetic experience of those things? What does it feel like to be engaging with those things as I have been?
[00:28:28] Flynn: And as I pay attention to that, it's okay there's anxiety here. There's like arrogance and pretension here, and there's fear here. Okay. So it's not like these things are necessarily me not being myself. There are certainly symptoms of being a fragmented version of me, but it's not really not being myself.
[00:28:48] Flynn: It's just being fearful, being arrogant, being afraid, being anxious, being ashamed. Okay, so when I'm in the, I'm in the habit of [00:29:00] practicing those internal states unconsciously, here's the life that's built out. And here are my tendencies. Oh, when I'm in the practice of shame and anxiety and embarrassment.
[00:29:10] Flynn: And arrogance, that's when I noticed myself hiding certain things away. Oh if they know this about me, doesn't that then mean that I'll have Lex less access to resources, romantic relationships, status, and clout. Okay. If hiding things away about myself is part of the system of shame and anxiety and embarrassment okay that's a.
[00:29:33] Flynn: Feature of that system that I probably don't want to practice anymore. So let me start to get curious about what, who I am and what I'm doing and what the ecosystem of my life is like when I'm intentionally practicing lightfulness, playfulness, curiosity, fun, embarrassment, those things about me that I was formerly thinking I needed to hide away from the world.
[00:29:56] Flynn: Like what's my relationship with that? How do I [00:30:00] use those? Things as material to express lightness and joy and delight to use as material to bond with others. So what I really want you to take away from this is that the, it is your patterns of internal states. That then ultimately express themselves in your, in the ecosystem of your mind, your body, your physical relationships, I mean your physical environment in your relationships, whatever your patterns of internal states are and how they express themselves in the ecosystem of your life.
[00:30:35] Flynn: That's who you are. What when we're talking about who you are, that's what you are is the pattern of your internal states. And the ways in which those internal states become calcified in your body, in your thoughts, in your physical environments, in your relationships. And if the predominant, if your predominant pattern is shame, fear, anxiety that's who you are and that's not [00:31:00] good or bad.
[00:31:00] Flynn: If you're to say, yeah, that's what I want. That's who I want to be. That's what I want to experience forever. I want to continue with shame, fear, and anxiety. Then we would say, okay, continue on as you are, like continue with the ecosystem as it is because it's working to produce the internal result that you want, which is shame, fear and anxiety.
[00:31:19] Flynn: Now, of course, like we were saying earlier I would just bet my life on this. Then when actually given the option and an accepting, warm, loving way, that's not forcing you to be something different. You would say no. I want wellbeing. I want confidence. I want joy. I want lightness. I want delight. I want fun.
[00:31:36] Flynn: I want play. And so we say, okay where are the opportunities in your ecosystem to start to make that shift? What is it? What is it? How can we start to create more lightness in your Thinking, how can we start to create more lightness in your body? How can we start to create more lightness in your relationships, in your bedroom, in your physical environments?
[00:31:56] Flynn: Or like, how can we start to create a little bit more [00:32:00] of the energy that you want in this particular relationship of yours? And that's not just relationship with people. That's relationship with your bedroom and your bed and your toothbrush and your clothes and your body and your food and your water.
[00:32:13] Flynn: Everything is a relationship and in all relationships, water, toothbrush, food girlfriend, boyfriend in all relationships, you are exchanging a particular energy and the pattern of the energy that you exchange joy, shame, Anger, love, warmth, coldness. The pattern of the energy that you exchange with all things in your life, in your ecosystem is who you are.
[00:32:41] Flynn: That's what it means to be yourself is to make a choice about what you want to experience internally, like getting clear on the moments in your life. Where you're a version of yourself that you like the most where it's the most fulfilling, where it's just your preference. And if what you like is to be the shame, ashamed, [00:33:00] angry version of yourself, I truly mean it.
[00:33:01] Flynn: That's okay, but it's probably not what you like. So the experiences in your life where you're the version of yourself that like, that you just it just feels the best. A lot of people are that way with their dogs and are afraid to be that with the rest of the world. Whereas I think. Truly that if a person were to replicate how they are with their dog with the rest of the world, and let's say make content with the exact same energy that they use to relate to their dog with, I think that person would be wildly successful and have immense access to belonging.
[00:33:35] Flynn: Now, why is that? It's because it's the person who's most boldly to experience internally what they want to experience, who is the person that is the most magnetic and the most attractive. And that leads us into some of the barriers that come up in the process of, in the experience of being you, because there's this really strange paradox at play, where [00:34:00] we all hope that playing a persona to the world.
[00:34:05] Flynn: Being a fragmented version of ourselves, and we're motivated to fragment as a result of fear. If we don't fragment, then we're going to be hurt or we'll lose something or, whatever we're motivated to fragment because of fear. And so then we're the fragmented persona to the rest of the world. And we think that if we're not that persona, then we're going to lose status and be rejected.
[00:34:29] Flynn: We're afraid of the consequences of that. And we think it's going to mean that we're alone. The truth is. Is that the fragmentation might work slightly, but it's never going to fully work the way that you might hope for. It's never going to be the thing that's next level fulfillment, like magnetic, walk into a room and light the entire room up magnetic.
[00:34:52] Flynn: And that comes from choosing to be your whole self and what we mean by being your whole self. Is getting clear on the [00:35:00] internal experiences you want to have and letting those experiences express themselves through you in any environment, anywhere you are with any person. And by the way, it's a practice, so you're not going to be a master at it immediately.
[00:35:13] Flynn: I'm not a master at it. Like it took me six months of thinking this way, understanding what I want to. Feel to even grasp the concept that there's no such thing as a being myself. All there is whatever I'm feeling and experiencing in this moment. And while what I get to do is get clear on what I want to experience, joy, delight, curiosity, warmth, and be open to that particular energetic state expressing itself through me as I relate to my internal world.
[00:35:44] Flynn: And all the things around me in my external world and my patterns of doing that when I'm in a pattern of doing that with things that are joy, love, warmth oriented. That's the thing that we call being yourself. Okay. And that's and that, that [00:36:00] just bit to emphasize the paradox. And that's the thing that is the most magnetic.
[00:36:05] Flynn: That is the most likely to contribute to you bonding with others and having status is being that way. It's not about being the right persona or appearing the right way or saying the right things. It's about the person who most boldly selects being the person who most boldly selects the internal experience you want to have and just being that thing, letting that express itself through you.
[00:36:29] Flynn: That's the thing that the whole world is attracted to. Every single person craves that level of freedom. And when they sent people's bodies and unconscious minds and nervous systems can sense when someone is operating that way. And when they sense that someone's operating that way, like everyone, just think about an ancient nervous system orienting towards food and sex, everyone's nervous system orients in that direction wants to be near you that, you're magnetic. So let's talk about some barriers. So one of the things [00:37:00] that comes up in the way of being yourself is the idea of having to get comfortable with the idea that you're not for everyone and that some people won't like you.
[00:37:11] Flynn: Okay. So that is a difficult thing to get comfortable with. And I don't really think anyone is a master at that. I think a lot of people pretend to be masters at that and not care, but here's the thing when you're living a life where you're highly aware of what you want to experience in any given moment, the energetic state, and you know how to tap into that and relate to all things internally and externally.
[00:37:35] Flynn: As a practice of exchanging that particular energy in every given moment, you have what you want. And over time, as you practice that, you then build an ecosystem that is filled with what you want. So if what you want is joy. And you are intentionally practicing, exchanging joy in your internal and external world over and over and over and over again, understanding you'll get some of it wrong, but [00:38:00] you'll get it more right than wrong.
[00:38:01] Flynn: Over time, your life becomes an ecosystem of joy, your relationships, how you make your bed, how you brush your teeth, how you wash your body, how you like everything. It's an ecosystem of joy. And when you build out an ecosystem of joy for yourself, joy is just built into your environment. So when you have that's what we're talking about when we're talking about abundance, your ecosystem is abundantly filled with the internal experience that you want because the patterns over time have calcified into your ecosystem.
[00:38:33] Flynn: It's how you, it's like the dynamics of your friendships, the dynamics with your clients and how you make money. It's just what your life is. And when you have that ecosystem, there's you just understand that. That you not being for everyone is actually a fantastic thing because you know that the people who you're for, if you're being true to yourself and you're really creating the version of yourself that you want to be in the life [00:39:00] you want to live, it's like the.
[00:39:02] Flynn: Who you're for are incredible people because those are people who resonate with joy. And that's the thing is like when you fully go for it, when you fully go for wellbeing and building out an ecosystem and a sense of self, that is an expression of a reflection of an amplification of joy. Other people who have abundant access to joy recognize that and no matter who you are, you could be like, I can't make it on my own.
[00:39:28] Flynn: Like Hawthorne Heights, like Ohio emo person in the pursuit of joy and someone who's like. Cool Malibu, Ken in 1991 Ferrari, if they're in pursuit of joy, then they're going to recognize the joy. I'm laughing at the Hawthorne Heights song. They're going to recognize the joy in you and it won't matter what your expression of joy is.
[00:39:56] Flynn: If you have on like eye black and the bangs parted to [00:40:00] one side, covering their face, joy recognizes joy and joy resonates with joy. So the people who are not, who you're not for, again, if you're being true to yourself, because a lot of people are not actually being what they want and they're like, oh yeah, I'm just not for everyone, but actually what they're experiencing is insecurity and shame, which again is okay, but it's not the thing that they say they want.
[00:40:22] Flynn: And then they reject people who they're not for. If you're actually the thing that you're saying you want, it just oozes out of you. And the other people in the world who operate similarly, it's just so easy to recognize when a person is like truly cultivating the experience they want. And when you are abundant and when your ecosystem is abundant in that way, it's just like the most.
[00:40:45] Flynn: Obvious thing to celebrate others, no matter how it's represented, no matter what, like cultural references or what style or what expression, it doesn't matter, like joy recognizes joy. And when [00:41:00] you operate in that state, there's just, it's not that you don't care about. Not being for other people of course, there's still that gets involved in stuff will get triggered in you, but you, in that state, you're actually excited about the triggers because the triggers are the opportunity for you to actually increase the power of your joy, the triggers, the parts in you who are afraid of getting rejected by other people, it's not about not being rejected by other people.
[00:41:24] Flynn: It's about your relationship with. That part, who's afraid of being rejected by other people. And when you form an incredible relationship with that part of you, and you're just actually increasing the amplification of your joy. So you actually want to have the experiences where people reject you because that's the thing, those triggers and those fears bring up the things in your unconscious, bring them to the surface that you need in order to continue to enhance and harness the power of your joy, your delight, your fun, your play, whatever it is that you want.
[00:41:57] Flynn: Okay. Being afraid of never [00:42:00] being understood. I'm going to just, I'm not going to dive too deeply into this one. Here's what I think is mastery level relationship with self. And here's the application of a lot of the principles and concepts we're talking about. Let's say the experience that you want is fun.
[00:42:19] Flynn: Okay. Now you've got this program in you. You've got this like unconscious conditioning that's like you need to be understood and no one understands you. The question is not about being understood. The question is about what are you feeling when you perceive you are not being understood. And that might be like frustration, shame, loneliness.
[00:42:40] Flynn: It's not about being understood. It's about your relationship with the part of you who's feeling shame and think in order to feel better, it needs to be understood. It's all about, Oh, sorry. I spoke a little loud there. It's all about your relationship with that part of you. It, you [00:43:00] could live the rest of your life.
[00:43:02] Flynn: Never again being understood. And if you have a loving, warm relationship with the part of you who thinks you need to be understood, it doesn't really matter if you're understood or not. And actually, the more you have a relationship with that part of you. The more able, the easier it is for other people to stand to understand you, the more clarity the more clarity you're producing the more finely tuning your musical note I messed up the way of structuring that sentence, but you become a finely tuned musical note. When you have a relationship with the parts of you who think what you need in order to be safe is to be understood. And the thing is I actually think about this all the time. What is it like to be in love with being misunderstood? What's it like to have fun with never being understood?
[00:43:50] Flynn: The thing is when we. Think we need to be understood. We're operating with such a limited perspective, such a limited worldview. Like I need to be understood in order to be safe. No, actually being [00:44:00] safe is being the person who knows how to be in love with life, even if no one understands you, like that's where.
[00:44:07] Flynn: It's at, okay, now here's one that I really the real me. Isn't very desirable. I'm afraid that the real me isn't very desirable. I'm afraid that I'm too much, or I'm afraid that I'm not enough. Think about the model that we spoke about of what it means to be you, which is truly a musical note.
[00:44:29] Flynn: It's a frequency. If you're experiencing joy and warmth, you're just playing a musical note. That may actually communicate with the entire universe, but let's just go with what is conventional enough with the stuff in the research that heart math is doing and say that you're communicating your internal state to everything around you within 15 feet.
[00:44:52] Flynn: So the plants within 15 feet around you are aware of what your internal state is. They're aware of the frequencies that [00:45:00] you're producing. They're aware if you're in a state of chaos or if you're in a state of coherence and harmony and organization, there's this thing that I've noticed where people, where there's like a, like if you're afraid of being too much no, you're not too much.
[00:45:14] Flynn: It's it's them. They can't handle you. And no. It's not about. Being too much or not enough or not being desirable. The question is, do you like the experience you're having when you're doing the thing called being too much or doing the thing called not being enough or doing the thing that you're afraid is not desirable?
[00:45:35] Flynn: Do you like what's happening when you're being that version of yourself, the version of yourself, who's too much, like a lot of the time, the thing that we describe as too much, there's actually insight in it. The too muchness is it often is the attempt to mask and insecurity with loudness or whatever it is like being louder than the [00:46:00] insecurity in order to try and hide the insecurity.
[00:46:02] Flynn: People are wise. People know how to pick up on that shit, even if they can't communicate it. So I dunno, I just don't like the idea of outright rejecting the idea like, Oh, I'm not too much. Like people just can't handle me. It's not. about that. It's, are you being truthful with yourself about the experience you're having?
[00:46:22] Flynn: And do you like the experience you're having? Is the version of yourself that you're being like, is it fluid? Does it feel like water and smooth? And is it pleasant? Is it light? Is it delightful? Is it enjoyable? Or is it actually like rigid and chaotic and sharp and you can. Feel the repression of fear, but you're continuing to rely on this particular persona because it's working to repress the fear, but the repression of the fear is not what you actually want.
[00:46:50] Flynn: It's so let's like, I just say, challenge yourself to not make it about whether you're desirable or whether [00:47:00] you're too much or too little not. Assessing yourself through those lens, but simply asking yourself what is this experience I'm having? And do I like it? And if I like it and I'm being real with myself, then I'm going to continue being this way.
[00:47:14] Flynn: If I'm truly practicing and amplifying the energy that I want to amplify, then I'm going to continue doing that. The thing is like, When we're talking about you being a musical note and communicating to everything, 15 feet around you again, joy recognizes joy, love, recognizes love, warmth, recognizes warmth, love, also recognizes fear, joy, also recognizes fear.
[00:47:42] Flynn: Recognizes fear and generally wants to attack fear or gets scared of it and wants to hide away. But fear sometimes struggles to recognize love. So if you're really being, if you're being yourself in the way that [00:48:00] we're speaking about it in this model, where it's not actually about something called being yourself, it's what experience am I having?
[00:48:06] Flynn: And am I amplifying it in the way that I want to? Am I exchanging this energy with everything around me in a way that's satisfying and fulfilling? Do I like this? It's probably going to be the case that you're going to get a lot less feedback about being too much or too little of something. But again, that's not the goal.
[00:48:23] Flynn: The goal is getting clear on what you want to experience internally and then just practicing that in every single moment. Okay. This is a great one. What happens when I take the mask off and I am no longer the version of myself people expect me to be? I love this question. It's such a real one. Actually, all these questions are really real.
[00:48:43] Flynn: I did the, when people say Oh, wow, such a good question. They're always saying that because they don't know the answer. So they're. Calling it a good question because it's like something that they haven't thought of before. I, it's just, I don't know. It's just a funny thing. Like it's, and I do the exact same thing or [00:49:00] when it gives me the opportunity to speak about something about myself or something I love, then all of a sudden it's a good question.
[00:49:06] Flynn: Okay. What happens when I take the mask off? I no longer am the version of me. People expect me to be, yeah, most of us. Have are living or have lived a lot of our lives being who other people expect us to be, or we think they need us to be. And we think this is the fragmentation and we continue to wear the mask because we're afraid that if we take it off, they'll get mad.
[00:49:28] Flynn: They'll abandon us. They'll, we'll disappoint them. We'll lose connection, will become isolated. One of the things that I realized when I was, I think I had this realization. I was 21 and I had this moment where I was like, Whoa, everything that I'm doing. Is for other people to not be surprised, like everything that I'm doing is allowing people to continue to see me the way that [00:50:00] they expect they've come to expect to see me.
[00:50:03] Flynn: And I'm afraid of changing because then I'm going to be something that they've no longer come to expect and they might be uncomfortable. And I'm scared of their discomfort because I think that if they're uncomfortable, then they're less likely to invest in me. But again, remember, the truth is that you being the real you.
[00:50:24] Flynn: Becoming the most yourself, which really means tapping into the internal experience you want and amplifying it. That's the most magnetic thing in the world. Like you doing that, I will likely make the people around you want to be even closer to you, to be honest. But that's not necessarily the goal of it.
[00:50:40] Flynn: That's like a nice effect of it, or maybe a symptom of it. What I realized in that moment was, whoa, in this moment, like literally in this moment, but this is when I was 21. I can be whoever the fuck I want to be. What I have done up until this [00:51:00] point right now does not determine what I choose to do right now.
[00:51:06] Flynn: I have freedom to make any choice about who I want to be in this moment. And it's funny about that. I realized that at 21 and then I didn't start to really implement it until 29. It took me, Let's say eight years to take a bold leap and to actually do it. But, as I think about that, like I tried, it's it's like a, like I tried, it took little steps, like little steps.
[00:51:31] Flynn: And then they started to get a little bigger than a little bigger than a little bigger than they turned into leaps. And that's the truth of my experience. I'm sure I got that insight at 21 and I tried to practice it as best I could. And what I was able to do back then is probably nothing in compared to what I'm able to do now with that kind of insight, but I at least got the insight and then I tried it and then it took me to the next place with the next insight and the next insight.
[00:51:55] Flynn: So I just want to say like you, you in this moment [00:52:00] can create whoever you want to be, and it's actually the case. That when you get good at that, which you won't be right away, but as you get better and better at that, you'll become even more attractive. And so you learn that it's the process of creating yourself.
[00:52:18] Flynn: That is the thing that's the most fulfilling. And to be the most fulfilled is the thing that also seems to be the thing that attracts the success and the relationships that you want. But the relationships and the success are not necessarily the primary things. They're great. And they help you Amplify the experience, but the real thing is just the experience of boldly creating yourself in every single moment.
[00:52:40] Flynn: So I hope that's enough clarity to move forward. Okay. Last one. I'm afraid that people will use the information of who I really am to manipulate or hurt me. This to me sounds like an opportunity for a part. Because I, I know that a lot of people are afraid of this. And I [00:53:00] think that this is something that is like deeply embedded in the human psyche, afraid of being in the spotlight because of other people's envy.
[00:53:09] Flynn: You might've heard of the thing, the evil eye. I just watched an amazing hour long YouTube thing on this. Oh fuck. I can't remember the creator's name, but I'll put it in the notes. It was remarkable. This philosophical and cultural take on the evil eye and our Fear of being envied fear that people when we're truly seen our fear that people are going to take that and use it to hurt us.
[00:53:35] Flynn: And this is actually something that's pretty, it's deeply connected with something called the mother wound, where like the idea of the mother wound is that you were either. Force to expose your internal world or your internal world wasn't tended to enough, either way, it creates like a, not very pleasant, warm, loving relationship with your internal world.
[00:53:56] Flynn: It's either an obligation to show it. So then you want to retract and not [00:54:00] show it to anyone or. It wasn't, you didn't learn that your internal world was of interest or useful or valuable. There's a bunch of things you can do with that. You can retract or you can compensate by needing to, it to be seen and be understood.
[00:54:12] Flynn: Now I, this is what I, so it probably a big piece of the puzzle in this question is your relationship with the part of you who's, who thinks that people are going to use information to hurt you. The way that I think about this is can you ever really be hurt? That's how I think about it.
[00:54:34] Flynn: Yes. You have this like very human experience where status can be taken, like resources can be taken away. You can be like physically hurt. You can die. I, you also have a part of you who has never been and can never be hurt. And I think with these kinds of questions, it's all about the relationship between the infinite version of you who can never be hurt, who can never have anything taken away, and the [00:55:00] finite version of you who's afraid who can have things taken away, who can be hurt.
[00:55:04] Flynn: It's the relationship between those two versions of you that creates an immense. Fearlessness because yeah, okay. Some people could hurt you. They could use information to hurt you, but like when you're tapped into this model of being yourself that I'm describing where you're amplifying a particular resonance, a particular frequency, when you're tapped into that model, that shit just.
[00:55:27] Flynn: Doesn't matter. It's I actually, the way that I think about it is okay, if someone were to use information to hurt me, I actually want to be close to that. Like I invite that in because I trust myself to alchemize that energy. I trust myself to use anything that happens, take it in, transmute it, transform it into material that I can use to bond even closer with people to.
[00:55:51] Flynn: To strengthen bonds, to make myself more powerful. Like I, maybe I'll have experiences in my life where I find out that I'm incredibly naive [00:56:00] and, but I, but it's it's a level of confidence and power that I just wish that I could take from me and offer to you. I can't because it's going to require that you're practicing some of the things that we're speaking about here and it's going to take time for your nervous system to adjust, but I will say the result of it is fucking amazing because I, when I'm telling you that I'm not afraid of people using information about me to manipulate or hurt me, like I, I really mean that I really believe.
[00:56:30] Flynn: And trust that I would, I can take anything and transmute it into material that enhances and contributes to life and nourishment and love and warmth and belonging. And when you trust yourself in that way, that's the energy where you can walk among lions and you are chilling. And that is really what my content is all about at its core is helping you access that state of being.
[00:56:58] Flynn: While you [00:57:00] create a, the exact world that you want to live in being that in that exact state of immense power and confidence and curiosity and warmth. And even if something hurts you, you're willing to be close to it and love it. Because you trust your capacity to exchange warmth and you trust the power of warmth and you trust the power of love sets you up to be fearless while also being bold as fuck and creating whatever you want.
[00:57:26] Flynn: Thank you all so much for today. This is an incredibly fun topic for me to discuss. I appreciate you so much. Like the people in this audience, like you're just such critical thinkers. Your ambition is high. Your desire for love and warmth and authenticity and realness is remarkably high. It just feels, it feels so good for me to be surrounded by a group of people who appreciate.
[00:57:51] Flynn: Like this type of life like where you're looking to be empowered so that you can empower other people. I appreciate it Endlessly. Thank you. [00:58:00] So so much