You’re Allowed to Become Someone You’ve Never Been / Episode 58

Have you ever felt like you’ve lost yourself?

What if you haven’t lost yourself at all? What if the person you’re searching for isn’t someone you misplaced—but someone you’ve never been given the chance to become?

In this episode of I Am Spice – The Podcast, we continue the conversation from Episode 57 and explore what comes after survival. Healing isn’t only about understanding your past. Eventually, it asks something new of you: Who are you choosing to become?

Together we’ll explore how survival shapes our identity, why so many of the traits we call our personality are actually protective patterns, and why curiosity—not judgment—is the key to lasting growth.

If you’ve ever struggled with self-worth, people-pleasing, fear of change, or wondering whether you’re allowed to become someone different, this conversation is for you.

In this episode we discuss:
• Why “finding yourself” may be the wrong goal
• The difference between surviving and becoming
• Why healing eventually looks toward the future
• How your identity is still being written
• Breaking free from labels you’ve given yourself
• Learning to choose who you’re becoming every single day
• Giving yourself permission to evolve

Remember…

The goal was never to find yourself. The goal has always been to give yourself the courage to become.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Let's piss some people off. Have you ever stopped and wondered if the person you're trying so hard to find isn't actually someone you lost? What if she's someone you've never been given the chance to become? I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions we have about life. We spend years saying, I just want to find myself, as if the real us is hiding somewhere, waiting to be discovered. But what if that's not true? What if life isn't about finding yourself at all? What if it's about becoming someone you've never had the freedom, the safety, or even the permission to be? Today I want to talk about becoming. Not because who you are isn't enough, but because I believe there's a version of you that's been waiting patiently for you to stop surviving long enough to finally meet them. Hi beautiful souls, and welcome back to I Am Spies the podcast. I'm your host, Spice. And as always, I'm so incredibly grateful that you're here. Whether you're listening while driving to work, folding laundry, sitting on your porch with a cup of coffee, walking your dog, or maybe you're simply trying to make sense of a season of life that feels confusing. Thank you for letting me be part of your day. Honestly, thank you so much. If you've been enjoying these conversations, I would love for you to take a second to follow the podcast, please. It's free. Subscribe on YouTube if you're watching there. Leave a review or share the episode with someone who might need it. Every single share helps this little community grow. And my hope has always been that these conversations remind people they are never as alone as they sometimes feel. Now let's get into today's episode. Last week we talked about something that I think so many of us carry without even realizing it. We talked about the survival version of ourselves. The version that learned how to adapt, how to protect ourselves, how to keep going when life didn't seem to offer many options. And I received so many messages from people saying they had never thought about themselves that way before. Some of you finally understood why you keep reacting the way you do. Some of you said you cried because you realized you spent years trying to fix yourself when there was never anything wrong with you to begin with. You were simply doing what you had learned to do in order to survive. That meant, honestly, it meant so much to me because that's exactly why I started this podcast. Not because I have all the answers, because I don't, not because my life is perfect, but because sometimes hearing someone put words to something you've been feeling your entire life can completely change the way you see yourself. And today I want to take that conversation one step further because eventually healing asks something new of us. It asks actually now what? Okay, so you've survived, you've learned, you've grown, you started recognizing old patterns, you maybe you started setting boundaries, maybe you started saying no without apologizing. Maybe you're finally realizing that not everyone deserves unlimited access to your heart. But after all of that, who do you become? Who are you? Because healing isn't just about letting go, healing is about it's also about building, it's about creating, is about choosing. We become really good at talking about anxiety and depression and emotional healing. And yes, those conversations matter a lot. They're necessary, but eventually there comes a point where healing stops asking you to keep looking backwards. Instead, it gently turns your face towards the future and whispers, what kind of life do you want to create now? I don't know why, but that question feels so much bigger than the asking who we are. Because asking who we are usually makes us look behind us. But asking who we want to become makes us look ahead. But lately, I've started wondering if those words are even accurate. Because think about it. When explorers search for new land, wherever it was, they were looking for something that already existed. When someone loses their keys, those keys already exist. When you search for your phone, it's somewhere waiting to be found. So they already exist. But people aren't static. We're not objects. We are constantly changing, we're constantly evolving. So maybe there isn't one final version of ourselves hidden, somewhere waiting for us to stumble across her. Never know. Maybe we're creating her every single day as the days go by. That thought changed everything for me. Because if I am creating myself, then I don't have to stay trapped inside someone I no longer recognize, right? I don't have to keep introducing myself as the woman that I was 10 years ago. I am not that person, I don't live there anymore. Or five years ago, or even last year. I get to evolve, and so do you. I think one of the greatest lies we tell ourselves is that consistency means never changing. But that's not true. It's honestly so not true. Consistency doesn't mean becoming frozen, it means remaining true to your values while allowing yourself to grow. Think about nature for a second. A tree doesn't apologize for growing new branches. The ocean doesn't apologize for changing with the tides. Flowers don't bloom all year long just to make everyone else comfortable. Everything in nature understands that growth requires seasons. Yet somehow as human beings we convince ourselves that changing means we're inconsistent. That evolving means we're confusing people, that becoming someone different somehow makes us fake. We are not. I don't believe that saying anymore. I actually think refusing to grow is one of the saddest things we can do as human beings. Because growth isn't pretending to be someone you're not, growth is finally becoming someone you've always had the potential to be. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that so much of what we call our personality isn't actually our personality at all. It's our protection. Let that sink in for a minute. Some people say that they're independent. Maybe they learned they couldn't rely on anyone. Some people say they're people pleasers. Maybe they learned love felt conditional when they were growing up. Some people say they don't need anybody. Maybe needing someone once hurt too much. Some people call themselves perfectionists. Maybe making mistakes wasn't safe where they grew up. And some people are constantly making everyone laugh. Maybe humor became the only way to survive pain. Some people stay quiet because silence protected them. Some people become loud because no one listened unless they raise their voice. What if the things you've been calling just who I am are actually the ways you learn to protect yourself? That doesn't make those qualities bad. It doesn't make them wrong. It simply means they're worth becoming curious about. Because curiosity opens doors that judgment never will. Imagine if instead of saying this is just how I am, you started asking, I wonder why I became this way. Those two sentences sound similar, but they lead to complete different lives. One closes the conversation, the other opens it. I've learned with time that healing doesn't happen because we judge ourselves into becoming different. It happens because we become curious enough to understand ourselves. Curiosity creates compassion. Compassion creates change. Judgment usually does create shame. And shame has never helped anyone become the person they're capable of being. One of the things I've had to learn over the past few years is that it's a huge difference between understanding yourself and limiting yourself. Sometimes we take a painful experience and turn it into our identity. I've always been anxious. I'm terrible at relationships. I've never finished what I start. I'm too emotional. I'm too much. I'm not enough. The problem isn't what that we've experienced those things. The problem is that we stop describing experiences and we start defining ourselves by them. And words are really powerful. The stories we tell ourselves become the lenses through which we see ourselves. If you tell yourself long enough that you are broken, you'll eventually stop looking for evidence that you're healing. If you tell yourself you're difficult to love, you'll overlook every person who chooses to love you. And if you tell yourself you're not capable, you'll never give yourself the opportunity to prove yourself wrong. I've had to catch myself doing that more than time, you know, more times than I like to admit. There have been seasons where I looked in the mirror and I only saw the parts of myself that still needed work. The flaws, the insecurities, the mistakes, the moments I wished I could erase everything. And one day I realized something. I was talking to myself in ways I could never speak to someone I truly love. And that is something that we gotta stop and look into. Can you imagine sitting across from your best friend while she tells you she's trying her best, she's healing, she's growing, she's showing up every single day, and your response is to remind her of every mistake she's ever made. Of course not. You'd remind her how far she's come, you'd remind her that healing isn't linear, you'd remind her that one bad day doesn't erase years of progress. So why do we deserve any less from ourselves? Somewhere along the way, many of us became convinced that being hard on ourselves would somehow make us better. But it doesn't. It usually just makes us exhausted. Real growth isn't fueled by self-hatred, it's fueled by self-respect. It's looking at yourself honestly and saying, yes, there are things I want to improve, but those things don't determine my worth. Because your worth was never something you had to earn. Period. It was always something you carried. The difference now is that maybe, just maybe, you're finally starting to believe it. Maybe that's where everything begins. Not with becoming someone else, not with fixing yourself, not with earning your worth, but finally believing that you were always worthy of becoming more. I think one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is permission. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? Permission. But if you really think about it, so many of us are still waiting for it. We're waiting for someone to tell us it's okay to change careers. It's okay to leave the relationship that no longer feels healthy. It's okay to stop being the one who carries everyone else's burdens. It's okay to take up space. It's okay to rest. It's okay to dream bigger than people around us think we should. It's okay to stop being the emotional glue of your relationship. The truth is, most of us are waiting for permission from people who were never meant to decide the direction of our lives. I know what it's like to wonder if changing will disappoint people. I know what it's like to ask yourself, what if they don't understand me anymore? Which they don't. Or what if they think I've changed? And honestly, they probably will. Because you have to. And that's not something to apologize for. There was a time when I believed that if people became uncomfortable with my growth, maybe I should make myself smaller again. Maybe I should explain myself better. Maybe I should tone myself down so everyone else could feel comfortable around me. But here's what I've learned. When you shrink yourself to make someone else comfortable, eventually you become uncomfortable in your own life. And that's a price that's too expensive to pay. I think that's why so many people wake up one day and feel disconnected from themselves. They didn't lose themselves overnight. They abandoned themselves little by little. They said yes when they wanted to say no. They stayed quiet when they wanted to speak. They carried responsibilities that were never theirs to carry. They became who everyone else needed them to be until they couldn't remember what they needed anymore. If that's where you are today, I want you to know something. You are not behind. You are not broken, and you haven't missed your chance. You're simply standing at a crossroads that every growing person eventually reaches. One road says stay familiar, and the other says become. That's the part we don't celebrate enough. We love dramatic transformations. We love before and after stories. We love the big moments that everyone can see. But most transformations happen quietly. It happens when you choose to speak kindly to yourself. It happens when you decide not to send a text you know you'll regret. It happens when you finally make the doctor's appointment you've been avoiding all this time. It happens when you choose to ask for help. It happens when you start believing someone else's opinion. Doesn't have to become your identity. Those moments don't usually get applause, but they change your life. I also think we underestimate how much courage it takes to disappoint people's expectations. I'm constantly doing that. Not because we enjoy disappointing anyone, but because sometimes the expectations placed on us were never ours to carry. Maybe our family expected one version of you. Maybe your friends expected another. Maybe society handed you a list of milestones and timelines and convinced you that if your life didn't look a certain way by a certain age, somehow you had failed. Who made those freaking rules? And more importantly, why do we keep living them or buy them if they no longer align with the life we want? One of the most freeing things I've ever realized is that I don't need everyone's understanding in order to live authentically. Would I love for people to understand me? Of course. Would I love for everyone to support my choices? Absolutely. But waiting for universal approval is like waiting for the ocean to stop making waves. It's never going to happen. Someone will always project their fears onto your dreams, someone will always think you're too much, someone else will think you're not enough. You cannot build your identity around opinions that change depending on who's looking at you. Your identity has to come from something deeper than that. It has to come from knowing who you are when nobody is applauding, when nobody's criticizing, when nobody is watching. Because that's where authenticity lives. Authenticity isn't performing confidence, it's choosing honestly. It's waking up every morning and asking yourself, what feels true to me today? Not yesterday, not five years ago, but today. Because every day gives us another opportunity to align. Our lives with who we really are. I think we sometimes put so much pressure on ourselves to figure out our entire future that we forget we only have to become today's version of ourselves. You don't have to become the woman you'll be 10 years from now by tomorrow morning, girl. You just have to become one step closer today. One healthier choice, one honest conversation, one boundary, one act of self-respect, one decision that your future self will thank you for. Those small decisions eventually become a completely different life. And one day you'll wake up and realize you're no longer pretending. You're no longer surviving. You're simply living. Isn't that what we all want after all? Not a perfect life. Not a painless life, but a real one. A life where we don't have to perform for acceptance. A life where peace feels more important than proving ourselves. A life where we can look in the mirror and recognize the person looking back at us because we're finally living in alignment with our own heart. If you've listened to this podcast for a while, you know I don't believe healing means arriving at some magical destination where life never hurts again. Life is still going to surprise you, it's still going to challenge you. There will still be seasons of uncertainty, but the difference is that you'll meet those seasons as someone who knows herself instead of someone who's still trying to earn the right to exist. That's a powerful place to live from. So today, before we end this conversation, I want to ask you something. Not because I need an answer, because maybe you do. Who are you becoming? Not who have you been, not who do other people think you are, not who life forced you to become. Who are you choosing to become? Maybe she's kinder to herself. Maybe she's more courageous. Maybe she laughs a little louder. Maybe she stops apologizing for taking up space. Maybe she's finally starts the business she's been dreaming about. Maybe she leaves behind relationships that only survive because she keeps abandoning herself. Maybe she forgives herself for things she's been carrying for years. Maybe she simply decides that she's worthy of the same love she so freely gives everyone else. Whatever that version of you looks like, she isn't waiting for permission anymore. She is waiting for your decision because every single morning you wake up, life quietly places the pen back in your hand. And whether you realize it or not, you're writing the next chapter. You don't get to rewrite every page that's already been written. None of us do. There are chapters filled with heartbreak, chapters filled with mistakes, chapters filled with grief, disappointment, fear, and loss. Those chapters are part of our story, but they're not the end of your story. You still have blank pages, you still have dreams that haven't been lived, you still have laughter that hasn't been laughed, you still have people who you haven't met, places you haven't seen, lessons you haven't learned, and versions of yourself you haven't had the chance to become. Because it isn't. In fact, it may just be getting to the best part. So if no one has told you lately, let me be the one to say so. You are allowed to evolve, you are allowed to grow what no longer fits. You are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to protect your peace. You're allowed to become wiser without becoming colder. You are allowed to become softer without becoming weaker. You're allowed to dream bigger than the life you've known. And above all, you're allowed to become someone you've never been before. Not because who you are today isn't enough, but because growth is one of the most beautiful ways beyond the life we've been given. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. If c this conversation spoke to your heart, I hope you'll share it with someone who might need this reminder too. You never know whose life could change because you decided to press that button that says send. Until the next time, remember this. The goal was never to find yourself. The goal was always been to give yourself the courage to become. I love you guys. I'm rooting for you, and I'll see you in the next episode of I Am Spies the podcast. Love you bunches. And remember, we're unfiltered, unapologetic, and unstoppable. That's that.