Embracing the Becoming

Have you ever felt the subtle pressure to be "fixed," "healed," or to present yourself as having all the answers? That pressure isn't just uncomfortable—it might be preventing your most profound transformation.

In this deeply reflective exploration, I challenge the fundamental notion that security and fixed identity represent human strength. The truth is quite the opposite: our natural state involves constant evolution, shedding masks when they no longer serve us, just as trees naturally release branches. When we grip these identities too tightly, we strangle our own becoming.

The conversation takes us through the concept of the liminal stage—that uncomfortable, ambiguous space between who we were and who we're becoming. This space appears across cultures and throughout history as a necessary phase of transformation, symbolized in everything from ancient initiation rites to Dante's dark wood. What's fascinating is how consistently these traditions incorporate voluntary discomfort as the pathway through liminality.

I share my personal journey through a profound becoming and how others have misinterpreted my openness about this process as brokenness. This misunderstanding reveals society's discomfort with authentic transformation and our collective avoidance of three essential elements: discomfort, ambiguity, and honesty what I call the "perfect trifecta" preventing transformation.

Whether you're questioning your identity, feeling lost in transition, or sensing the stirrings of personal evolution, remember: you're not broken. You're becoming. What if this moment you feel lost in is actually your next beautiful beginning? Join me in embracing the uncertain, uncomfortable magic of transformation.

Transcript

Introduction to the Unfixed Self

Speaker 1 0:02

Hello, welcome back to the Unfixed Self Podcast. I'm your host, thomas Sage Pedersen. This is a space where we explore everything surrounding authenticity, identity, personal development, leadership, transformation and reimagine so that we might transform ourselves and, in doing so, shape culture and the world around us. Today's episode I'm going to be talking about the idea that I am not broken. I am becoming, and what that phrase means to me, because it has come up in the sense in my own personal development and has been reflected back to me in different situations, on social media, with my videos and just as I move through the world. Right, this idea of the pressure to be healed or fixed or to have all the answers and to be this secure person. Let's look at the idea of being secure. Right, there's this idea of being financially secure, this idea of being emotionally secure, like security. Right, this idea of being a thing, solidly in a thing, you know, in one thing I would even argue that that's what we're talking about here and that pressure to be that thing, to be secure in yourself, to be a fixed identity or to be a fixed anything, is a sickness. It is not a human trait, or even a human strength, to be so fixated on one thing and when we believe the identity that is shown to us that we are the mask that we wear is shown to us that we are the mask that we wear and we cling to that mask and we make that mask our identity, without allowing the mask to fall off when it needs to, Just like how branches of a tree fall off the tree. Naturally, our masks shift, sometimes even from situation to situation. Masks shift sometimes even from situation to situation, but when we hold on to that mask we feel like we have to be completed. I've seen this show up in a lot of different areas, right where people are so fixated on they're not used to people being raw, being honest about where they're at. You know, how are you? Oh, I'm fine, I'm good. It's a very good example my good friend Ashanti Branch, his nonprofit, the Ever Forward Club. He has these shirts that say I'm fine on it Because his whole work is about identifying the masks we wear.

Honesty vs Performance in Difficult Times

Speaker 1 3:42

And, as much as I understand that theoretically, it has been my experience of going into political action, going into activist action, you know, being part of different organizations, being part of different movements that has shown me what happens when we fixate on one thing, one part of ourselves. You know, when we believe what we believe is the only way of existing, and I'm not even talking about people who disagree with what I'm saying. A lot of times it's with people who agree with what I'm saying or what I believe in activist circles. But they project things their own healing their own pain, their own trauma onto the movement, onto other people, and they conflate their own experiences with, maybe, an experience with which they have learned, either through a book or through interview or through understanding, and lack the skills of self-awareness to know that that's what's happening and what this does is a lot of things happen, a lot of negative things bridges are burned, miscommunications, misunderstandings, misunderstandings when the equation is somewhat fairly simple in words be honest with yourself, be honest with the people around you, come from a place of truth. If you're hurting, allow yourself to hurt. If you're not, allow yourself not, you know, express what you need to express. Sometimes we feel social conventions to do both those things.

Speaker 1 6:01

There have been certain circumstances where everyone around me is crying and screaming and yelling and I'm not feeling genuinely anything. The honest truth is I'm not feeling, I'm sensing their emotion through empathy, but I am not in turn. It's not personalized for me. Should I perform for the comfort of others in that situation or should I be honest with myself and find strength in that and use that as a way to help people by being solid, by being me, by being fully, authentically me? You know these questions are hard questions, right? These questions are very difficult to answer. I don't have the answers, but that's the point. That's the point this episode and this podcast. It's not about the answers, it's asking the questions. It's about exploring, exploring the ideas of how to show up differently than we have shown up before, and the only way we can do that is by looking within as well and having trust in that. That is powerful.

Historical Context and Looking Within

Speaker 1 7:31

I mean, there are horrific things happening in the world right now. That is the real and there always has been. There has been genocides in Africa that we have never even heard about. There have been, throughout human history, the most devastating things that have happened. This is not new, even with our current administration in office. There was a time when we had internment camps for Japanese Americans. That was just the norm. Right now we're dealing with immigrants, right, but even if you think back then, can you imagine that happening right now. Some of us can, yes, but can you really imagine, like, explicitly from the government saying okay, if you're Hispanic or Black, we need you to go to these camps. If you're Hispanic or Black, we need you to go to these camps? That is not popular right now. Even if that is happening with Hispanic folks, it's not explicitly happening, right? It's not like every Hispanic person has to go into a camp right now.

Speaker 1 8:51

So, when we look at history, there is an arc of change, right? However, many wise teachers in the past have told us that we need to start looking within to be able to conquer the root of these issues. When are we going to stop the cycle and start looking inside of ourselves to understand how we are showing up, how our projections are showing up in movements? Because if we don't, we run the risk of repeating the same systems, but just looking different. You know, I don't think this could be an opportunity. We may not be alive when we see the change that we are fighting for. We even understand, and so all that to say that people don't know what it looks like.

Exploring the Process of Becoming

Speaker 1 9:53

We live in a society that is used to performance and at the moment, I am currently going through a deep becoming. I don't know what I am becoming, but I am in it. I am not broken, I am not depressed. I am letting what come out. Come out and what is there there and being a witness to what is moving inside of me and in front of me, allowing me to dive deeper inside of my soul to be able to understand in my consciousness, to understand how I've been showing up, my behavior, reflection, reflecting on how I've been acting according to my own history. Now, you know, have I been just coming from a place of people pleasing, like, caring so much about other people perceive me or see me as that I've shifted my behavior? Yes, yes, I have. I have, I've been totally doing that. Have I been coming from a place of fear? Fear of rejection, fear of not fitting in, fear of not being accepted? 110%. And so what happens when I start to show up or at least witness these things in a way that is more self-aware and more present into the moment, where the fog of my traumas and pain and insecurities start to fade away like fog going away on a sunny day, and when I start to see clearly reality in front of me. And now imagine more people stepping into that awareness of how their presence, their actions, their words have affected the people around them.

Speaker 1 12:07

I put out an episode or not an episode, but an Instagram post talking about depression, and multiple people reached out saying, hey, I'm here for you if you're ever going through things, and I think that's so beautiful, like you know. Thank you, right. It also felt a little misunderstood, and I think that's so beautiful, thank you, right. I also felt a little misunderstood. I felt like these people think I'm broken. I've had people who are, who are part of the Christian faith, reach out to me with different quotes and quotes that Eude that I am broken and I need to adopt a new religion to fix me. Ironically, that whole post was about how I was not depressed and how I actually found awareness of what was the root of my depression. It was actually an empowering awareness for me, right, and so it was confusing seeing some feedback, right, of people seeing saying that, alluding to me needing to be fixed or or that there was something wrong with me. Right, and I realize we are all mirrors and reflections of one another, right, and I think maybe, when I am that raw and that honest and sharing these intimate stories or situations. People may not be used to that. So this process of becoming is allowing myself to feel raw when I need to feel raw. It's not having a fixed identity, not performing a fixed identity, allowing myself to be the observer and seeing the different things that come up If you're in that space of the in-between, the liminal stage of development.

Speaker 1 14:31

They talk about the liminal stage. The liminal stage talks about how, especially in initiations, you know when men become, or boys become men in different indigenous cultures all across the world, all across history, there's always a stage called the liminal stage and that liminal stage is the in-between place between who you were and who you are becoming. It's the dark wood in Dante's Inferno. You know the place of darkness. When you have to walk through this place, full of monsters and demons, you know, and even the hero's journey, right the part of it where there's a struggle. There's always obstacles in the way of the hero's journey. For a reason, these stories tell us about human consciousness and a lot of times we avoid wanting to be in this dark space, this, this liminal space, this confusing space, because you don't know who you are. In this space you're, these masks are coming in front of your face all these different types of things to identify with and you're just sitting there observing them.

Speaker 1 15:44

In all these traditions, the start of getting out of the liminal stage of development is a voluntary act of discomfort. Right of development is a voluntary act of discomfort. Right, this way of you know, fasting for a certain period of time, going into the wilderness and having to do an activity, getting your tooth knocked out while touching a tree that is connected to your ancestors, and the list goes on. There's so many different struggles. I think multiple things.

Embracing Discomfort, Ambiguity and Honesty

Speaker 1 16:19

People have a fear of discomfort, a fear of ambiguity, not knowing what's happening, and a fear of honesty. Right, and that's like the key. Right, the key is these three things. It's the perfect trifecta to prevent us from transformation. And if we can embody those and accept those and learn to love those items. Honesty, trust, and that means being honest. Right, it's hard to be honest when you're in partnership. Sometimes it takes a little bit more courage to be honest. Right, because you don't want to mess up the relationship. You have an attachment there. Right, in some form or some capacity, and so there's this honesty we tend to lean into, not wanting to disrupt the status quo, disrupt the feeling of comfort, and we see these in activist movements, but we also see that reflected in ourselves.

Speaker 1 17:27

Ambiguity, this idea that nothing is fixed, that there can be two contrary ideas at the same time, paradoxes, confusion, insecurity, almost the opposite of what it means to be fixed in security is ambiguous. There's some ambiguousness. We hate that. A lot of us do not like that. I have talked about liking it, but even when I experience it, I don't like it. I want a fixed answer. I just want to give me the solution already right. Don't make me question and be confused about every part of my reality. But that's part of the journey.

Speaker 1 18:10

And then discomfort, and on top of that, voluntary discomfort, you choosing to be discomfort, uncomfortable. That's vulnerability. That's opening yourself up to potential harm, knowing it's going to hurt. Getting your tooth knocked out, knowing it's going to hurt, going into the wilderness you know it's going to hurt. You know fasting. You know you're going to feel pain. These are all things about what it is to become.

Final Reflection and Invitation

Speaker 1 18:42

You're not broken If you're in a place of confusion, of in-between, questioning your identity, questioning yourself. I'm here for you, I understand. I'm in that same place right now and I'm not broken. I don't need to be fixed. I'm becoming. I'm in the becoming stages of something beautiful. Who knows? But my intuition trusts this process. The knowing that is part of the ancient knowing From our ancestors trusts this process in me that our society refuses to acknowledge the cultural story. It doesn't play the game of us being machines.

Speaker 1 19:32

So I want to invite you to this reflection. So I want to invite you to this reflection. What if this moment you feel lost in is actually your next beginning? So I'll repeat that what if this moment you feel lost in is actually your next beginning? And so I want you to just sit with that, see if it resonates, see where you're at and see if you're avoiding some of these things like discomfort. You're avoiding things like ambiguity. Are you avoiding honesty, which is truth? Are you avoiding honesty, which is truth? I am grateful for everyone who has listened. I am Thomas H Patterson and this has been the Unfixed Self Podcast.