The Difference Between Your True Self (Soul) and False Self (ego)

There are two powerful forces within you—one that keeps you stuck, and one that sets you free.

In this eye-opening episode, we’re diving into the fascinating difference between the false self and the true self. One part of your psyche was built to protect you—but ends up holding you back. The other is your authentic, empowered self—the one that’s here to help you heal, rise, and thrive!

Understanding the difference between the two isn’t just helpful—it’s life-changing. When you stop living from fear, masks, and survival mode, and start aligning with your soul, everything begins to shift—your relationships, your confidence, your peace, your purpose.

✨ If you’re ready to break free from the version of you that was never the real you… press play. This episode will change how you see yourself forever.

For FREE Resources, Book Link, KB's Self-Love Merch Shop, 1:1 Coaching and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

Transcript

Kristen: 0:00

Hello, good day to everyone. Welcome to another episode of Empower Hour with KB. My name is Kristen Brown, and I will be your host for the next 75 minutes or so. Empower Hour is a podcast for the soul-led, the heart-centered, and the courageously curious. It's for the seekers, the givers, the sacred rebels, the ones who crave growth, long for deep transformation, and are willing to do the inner work to get there. Here we will dive into healing, self-discovery, emotional liberation, and soul alignment. Through honest conversations, spiritual insights, and empowering tools, you will be reminded of your inner wisdom, your worth, and your power to create meaningful change in your life from the inside out. If you are ready to break cycles, reclaim your power, and walk your path with authenticity and confidence, you are in the right place. So happy to have you here. This is a topic that I really played around with a lot in my College of Christian, and I continue to this day because there's something really powerful about the true self versus the false self. You'll hear me say quite often that this journey, this healing journey, is really about returning back to the true self, the true self, the whole self that you came here with before all of the things happened that made you believe that there was something wrong with you, that you were not enough, and implanted all of these false beliefs within you that contributed to certain behaviors in your life. I want to start out by saying that I did a slight bit of research on this, even though this is something that I could talk for hours about, and I discovered where it came from. Who was the first person who coined this phrase? And it was from Dr. Donald Winnicott. He's an incredibly influential pediatrician and psychoanalyst who worked through the 1940s and into the 1970s. He explained this theory about the true self and the false self in a paper that he wrote in 1960. This is how long this has been around. Dr. Winnicott expounded on this idea that people may develop a false self to protect their inner, more vulnerable true self, and that they might even do it at a very young age without even knowing it. So this goes back as far back as 1960. And I will tell you that there's so much written about this today. There's so much information out there that if it's something that you want to know more about, my goodness, get on the Google rabbit hole, get on the YouTube rabbit hole, get on the Chat GPT rabbit hole, because there is so much to learn about this. And I believe it's an incredible part of our healing journey. Because once I realized that there was two sides to my psyche and that I had this false self and this true self, then it gave me kind of a launching pad, it gave me a starting place to really look within, and that's where my self-awareness grew. Because I was paying attention to these parts of myself and asking myself, hmm, which side of my psyche am I coming from right now? You may have heard these terms instead of true self and false self, you may have heard of it as ego self and soul self or God self. So that might be different language that you relate to, but at any rate, there are these two sides of our psyche, and they will contribute to how we are showing up in life. This is also widely discussed and talked about in psychology and spirituality. That's why these things often overlap, even though some people want to keep this information in one lane rather than both lanes. Is this really about our full essence of a spirit in a human body, a soul in a human body doing human things? The true self is considered the core of who you are. It is your authentic self. It is untouched by societal pressures or trauma. It's characterized by spontaneity, genuine feelings, and a sense of aliveness. The false self, on the other hand, is a protective facade developed to adapt to external expectations for validation, often in response to trauma, childhood experiences, and or inconsistent nurturing. And sometimes the false self, believe it or not, interesting, stay with me here, can manifest as more socially acceptable but ultimately inauthentic version of oneself. Enter people pleasing. Sometimes that people pleasing is more acceptable from society because we're being, yes, men and women, and we're jumping through hoops and we're working ourselves to death, and we're putting others consistently above our own well-being. And people can say, Oh, look at that person, they're so amazing, look at what they do. And yet they have moved so far away from their true self, the whole essence of their being, that they're really a fractured version of who they are. So I talk about pulling all these fractured pieces back in to the self so that we can return to that whole self of who we are. So let's get into what the qualities of the true self are. And this is important. I'm also going to talk about how to return back to the true self. Or yes, if you have moved into the false self, which many of us have, by the way, this is very, very common. This is not like, oh, it's just five people out of ten. It just doesn't work that way. This is part of the human experience. So we will experience being in that false self for much of our life until we decide to actually do the healing work. So if you're discovering that there's parts of you that are like, oh gosh, I'm really in that space, please don't beat yourself up. That doesn't do any good. That actually works against us because what you're doing is shaming yourself for not being quote unquote perfect, because no one on this earth is perfect. None of us are perfect, nor are we ever going to be perfect. We're not designed to ever reach perfection. So if you start to notice things during this talk, oh my gosh, I don't do that or I do do this, just sit with it in an observation mode. Just go, mmm, that's some that's some curious intel. Hmm. All right, I can see how that might be true for me. Or, hmm, nope, that doesn't quite relate to me. This is all about opening your heart and opening your mind so that you can take in new information and start applying it to yourself. Like I said, this podcast is for people who are the soul-led and the heart-centered and the courageously curious. This is for the people who are really wanting a different experience of life, who are, who have struggled enough, have suffered enough, who are sick and tired of being sick and tired, and are ready for some change. So I talk about all things regarding reclaiming our personal power and returning to your true self. So this is, these are topics that interest you. Be sure to give me a follow here on Nune Vibe. If you're listening on another platform after the fact, be sure to give a subscribe or a follow, whatever it works on that particular platform, so that you can be geared to be notified when I come up and talk about future topics. Also, if you're on Nume Vibe, you can go back through and listen to talks that I've already given here. There's there's a lot. There's got to be a probably about 700 talks right about now because this was formerly called the Wisdom app, and I gave about 300 and something on that app. And then for this app, oh gosh, it's gotta be over probably about 350 so far. So go ahead and check out those topics. You can click on my profile picture, click where it says talks, and you will find all of the titles. And they go far back. So check those out, peruse, click on titles that interest you and see if any of these things resonate with you. I am not attached to what you pick up from these conversations. I merely share them with you because I like to see people heal. I like to see people strive or thrive. I like to see people stepping into their true self. And it's it's one of, to me, one of the most glorious and beautiful things that I can ever experience here is watching people return to that self because I know how many of us have moved so far away from it and have been suffering and struggling. And when that starts to happen, it is just a beautiful thing. Rachel said she loves the term courageously curious. I agree, Rachel. That term is really important because it takes courage to be curious, to go and say, hmm, what's out there for me? Is there is there something I don't know yet? Is there something I need to learn? How can I look within myself? How can I grow? How can I change, up level, shift, morph? Something about me. So yeah, that's a beautiful term. All right, the qualities of the true self. The true self can also be called the authentic self or the soul. All right, so it's your true self. It is that whole you that is that you that doesn't question anything about your worth and who you are. So one of the qualities of the true self is it's that part of you that feels real and genuine and allows you to express your true thoughts and feelings. It's the authentic part of you. We hear a lot about authenticity out in the world. And authenticity is so important, especially if we're looking to up level our lives and attract people to us that really drive with us, because often we are out in the world wearing masks. That's part of the false self that I'll get into. We are wearing masks to try to be who we believe somebody else would like, enjoy, appreciate, love, or approve of. So we don't these masks. Well, the true self is the part of you that is completely authentic and genuine in expressing your true thoughts and feelings. It also allows for natural and uninhibited actions and reactions. Now, that doesn't, when I say reactions, that doesn't mean that we go spout off at another person. That's not what it means by that. But let's say you're watching a movie and something happens in the movie that's really exciting, and you start clapping your hands and you're so joyful and happy about it. Okay, that's an authentic reaction to something that is happening. That's coming from your soul, that's coming from your true self. The other day, my family and I went, we follow these YouTubers called Call Me Chris and Selena Spooky Boo, and they became friends via YouTube and TikTok and social media, and they do shows together. And they recently made a movie and they love the paranormal. But this move, they actually, their movie went into theaters, and I'm so incredibly proud of them. The theaters actually picked up this movie that they made. So the whole family sitting in there because we've been fans of theirs for quite some time. And this other group of people walk in, and just authentically, I said, Yay, more fans, because I want to see, I want to see these girls really blow up. They're amazing, amazing human beings doing what they're doing. They're just their personalities, their essence, their kindness, they're they're genuine, they're just good people. And my daughter, my youngest, looked at me, she goes, Mom. And I thought to myself, oh, is that wrong? Was that bad? And then I thought, you know what, that was an authentic reaction. I because more people were coming into the theater, and then a couple more people came into the theater. And I was, I was authentically happy that they're getting people that are actually showing up in a theater, paying the theater price to watch this movie that they created. So that was what an expression of your true, you know, your uninhibited response would be is something like that. So it's also about willing to dance in public. It's about being, I don't know, I don't know what it is about my grocery stores, but they play the bangers. Their music, I just, I don't know. I don't know what station it's on. Every grocery store that I, my three or four that I go to always have the bangers on. And I'm end up singing and I'm dancing a little bit. That's uninhibited. That took me some time to cultivate that. But it's part of my true self. And even though that fear arises, I move past that fear and I say, this is what I want to do. This feels good to me. This makes me feel like I'm thriving. This makes me feel like I'm alive. It's uninhibited. Do I do it for a long time? Do I make a scene? No. But if it arises inside of me, I do it because that's what feels good. And it's not to get validation, approval, and acceptance. Because if I wanted approval, validation, acceptance, I probably wouldn't do it. So these are things that can come up for us where it's like, what is my true feeling here? What do I really want to do? And that's, you know, that's what we do. That's part of the true self. It's also associated with a sense of vibrancy, vibrancy, and a connection to one's own experience. That means what is vibrancy? What is vibrant when you're truly being who you are? Have you ever met somebody and they just feel like a light to you? They're just vibrant and they're alive and they feel good. That's someone that's likely connected to their true self. There's a sense of that within us. Now, I do want to disclaim that there's times that we can be in our true self and times that we're in our false self. We can, it can ebb and flow. We can be 70% in our true and 30% in our false. Sometimes it's 70% in our false and it's 30% in our true, 90-10 in either direction. This is not about knocking it out of the park for the people who are literal, and I'm a literal person too. So I just want to make the disclaimer for the literal folks out there that this is not about I have to be 100% all the time. Oh my gosh, I suck. There's something wrong with me. I've got to show every emotion, everything, every no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is about self-evaluation. This is about going within. And like when I feel like dancing or I feel like singing, I start singing and I and I say to myself, oh, I catch myself, like, oh God. And I look up and down the aisles. Is anybody hearing me? Is anybody looking at me? Is any it's that moment of awareness that I say, okay, what's stopping you, sister? What's stopping you? Is it fear? Well, it's part of your false self. It's part of that programming from your past that you were too much or you shouldn't do this for whatever reason. And then I work with that. It's about a practice, it's about a moving towards. It's not about hitting it out of the park 100% of the time. This is why grace, grace, grace, grace, grace is so incredibly important on this journey, this life journey that we're on. Because once we start applying grace to ourselves, which is one of the five self-love tenants that I talk about, once we start really applying grace to ourselves, life becomes easier. Because we have no expectations about who we're supposed to be or how good we're supposed to be doing whatever thing it is. It's understanding that we are morphing and evolving and changing, and that's the name of the game here. So to think you're supposed to be perfect is to put yourself in a category that doesn't even exist. It's not even out there, you guys. This is about allowing ourselves to grow and to evolve. Another quality of the true self is that it represents your inherent potential and your capacity for growth. That's what I was just talking about. See, I don't even know why I make an outline because I just end up closing my eyes and riffing. But that's part of it too, is that it represents our potential, knowing that we have the potential to reach the goals and the heights and the relationships and the careers and the financial status, whatever it is that we want. Our higher self, our true self knows this. It already knows it. Our false self says, Nope, never gonna happen. You suck, you're not good enough, you're too young, you're too old, you're too whatever. That's the false self. The true self goes, Yeah, yeah, sister, brother, you got this. You can get there. No one else is any more special than you. You're no more special than anybody else. Everybody's created equal. You can get there if you want to. It recognizes your potential and your capacity for growth, meaning, yeah, I can up level, I can change, I can shift, I can morph. When I gave myself permission to be a work in progress, to focus, not even focus on, but to allow for progress over perfection, so much changed in my life. Because all of the what's the right word here, all of the parameters, the fences, the constructs that I had around myself dissolved. And I just allowed myself to be ever changing, ever in flux, ever in growth. And it felt good. Think about a tree. A tree gets planted, and when it gets planted, that could be the moment where you decide, yeah, you know what? I'm going to work on myself in some capacity. Because that's the common phrase people say. I'm gonna work on myself. Well, working on ourselves means that we water the tree. We might need to prune the tree. We might need to cut the tree back in certain weathers. We do that often with bushes here in Phoenix. We'll cut them back in the spring and then let them rebloom again. I don't know if you guys do that in your place. I think people do with roses in other places. Being only an Arizona girl, I don't really know what happens in other states. I know that our temperature, our weather, our environment here. And then we let it do its thing. So we attend to it, but we don't hold these big guidelines on it that by year one, you've got to be 20 feet tall. No, we let it do its thing because that's the beautiful part of this healing journey is the allowance. When we start applying these things to ourselves, and this is the quote working on self, when we start applying these things to ourselves, we are going to shift and morph and grow in ways that we often don't even see at first. It's kind of like we planted this tree in our backyard, I don't know, a couple years ago. I said, I want a tree right here. So we planted a tree there, and then about a year later, I said, Oh my God, you remember this thing was a little stick. Look at this tree now. It's we just start to notice a difference. We start to notice the shade from the tree. We'll start to notice the same things in regards to ourselves. We'll be doing things differently. We will organically make different choices. And that's incredibly beautiful. So take the guidelines off, take the rules off, take the quote unquote goals off, and just allow yourself to grow by continuing to work on aspects of yourself, the shadow, the false self, your inner child, all of these type of things. And you're gonna start to see this organic shift in you that shows up in life more connected to your true self. The true self also thrives in environments that are supportive and accepting of individual individual. Individuality. So we are more able to express our true self when we are around individuals who allow us to be our true selves. And that's something that my children have said to me before when I've asked them questions about my parenting, all three of them, totally separate conversations, said, You allowed me to be who I am. You didn't try to make me into somebody that I'm not. Wow. I did that purposefully, but I never said it to them. Maybe I did. I'm saying never, but I don't know. I might have. But it's something that they all noticed is that I allowed them to be themselves. And I did that purposefully because I wanted them to be supported as best as I possibly could, support them to be who they are authentically. So that could be one of the things that come up in our childhood that stops us from being our true self is that we weren't supported for who we are. We were told we need to be something else. Maybe we were compared to our sister or our brother or the neighborhood or somebody else. Or we're we were living under some type of rules that our parents adopted that made the family acceptable in society. So we weren't really supported in our true self. So please know that if you've got individuals in your life that love you for who you are, who celebrate you for who you are, you've got some incredible soil for growth right there. And if you don't, don't let that stop you. Because, like I said in the beginning of this episode, this podcast is for the sacred rebels. You're the ones that are like, yeah, I'm not doing things the way everybody else is doing things. And that is part of returning to your true self, by the way. You may not know that, but to be a sacred rebel means I want to be connected to my true essence. All of this out here feels wrong to me. It feels false. It feels constricting. It feels judgy. It doesn't feel good. I'm going to break away from this. And sacred rebels are sacred because we are moving away from a structure. We're moving away from some type of culture, whether it's just a family culture or a religious culture or some type of indigenous culture that we grew up in. And we are moving away from that because something doesn't feel in alignment with our soul. You are sacred rebels. And I know there's many of you on here because we've had this conversation before where people are like, oh my wow, Kristen, I've never heard that term. That's me. Yeah, I get it. I'm a sacred rebel myself. I'm now the things that I broke away from weren't necessarily family rules and things like that. Remember, I I was, I was, I'm Gen X. I was raised in the 70s and 80s where we were feral and we just basically didn't have a whole lot of parenting going on in my particular case. Others may not have that same experience, but in my particular case, but there were other places that what friends were doing and the groups were doing, it just didn't feel in alignment with my soul. So I broke away from it. I was like, yeah, I'm not gonna do it that way. A couple more qualities of the true self, authentic self, the soul, are curious, creative, connected, expanding, loving, courageous, peaceful, calm, competent, compassionate, fulfilled, whole, acceptance of self. These are all aspects of the true self. I'm going to dive into the aspects of the false self after I speak to Imani, and then we're going to talk about how to move closer to this true true self, how to heal that false self so that we can step more fully into our true self. Welcome, Imani. Thank you for joining me today. Can't wait to hear what you have to share. Well, hello there, beautiful. How are you? Good day. I'm doing well, thank you.

Imani: 24:18

Add some sauce. See, say hello to your kitty for me too. All three of them. Yay! All three of them.

Kristen: 24:26

But they're not in here with me today because we know how that goes.

Imani: 24:30

Yes, yes. They like to have all the attention on them. They sure do. Yes. I never heard of that saying either, sacred rebels. In the circles that I am, they just say you're misunderstood. Because I don't think like everybody else. They're like, you're misunderstood because of that. Because people can't deal with the energy you bring into the room. They're like your energy like shifts atmosphere just and people aren't ready for that. And I was like, huh. Because I would always wonder, but why doesn't anybody like me? Right. Because I am peculiar. I don't think like everyone else does. And especially I'm an 80s kid too, okay? You had to be outside all day. There was no let me sit on this um iPad all day. No. Your parents would kick you out the house and you couldn't come back in until the street lights came off. And you had to fend for yourself. But my mom, I sometimes wish she would have raised me just a little bit different because she raised me very sheltered. She hovered all the time. If you breathed, she knew you grieved. If you said something, she you she heard it. Going into adulthood, I became more paranoid because she would tell me, no one's gonna care about you like I care about you. You can't be too far away. You can't be this, you can't be that. You can't cry, you can't express your feelings. And so, me being a very sensitive person, I would cry on command. I constantly got ridiculed by my mom for that. And that came into adulthood of okay, your voice doesn't matter. You're supposed to be seen, not heard as we grew up. Keep it moving. But that's in a sacrifice to your true self because you never got the chance to find out who that true self was. And that's me. I'm just now learning who my true self is after 45 years. But that's the beauty in it. It's never too late. It's never too late to say, you know what, I'm getting off this hamster reel, I'm getting off this boat, I'm getting off this ship, I'm going to chart my own course, and I'm going to get to know who am I really? And when you do that, you're able to have better relationships. 100%. I couldn't tell people how to help me. I was giving unrealistic expectations. I expected people to think just like I did and would get disappointed 100% of the time. Because I was trying to conform to what everybody else wanted. But I was slowly dying inside because I wouldn't let me out. Because every time I try to put a toe in the water of letting me out, it would cause a whole bunch of ruckets. And so I'd go back into my shell and play it safe. But the thing is, you can't play it safe anymore. You can't keep losing your identity in people, places, and things. You have to figure out what is your identity and you have to be willing to do the work. I ran from the work for a while until it hit me in the face, like, what you doing, girl?

Kristen: 27:49

Were you consciously running from the work or did you just not know? I would say both. Yeah.

Imani: 27:56

I would say both because in the circle of people I had around, you know, I was the yes person to, oh yeah, I'll do that. I'll do this, I'll do that. I would be Martha all the time instead of Mary and get frustrated that I'm doing all this stuff for people. I'm conforming this way for people, and I'm getting nothing in return. And I had to take a real hard assessment, and it started last year after I found out some information about my family. And I was like, you know what? We're gonna stop this crazy dream. We're going to break this cycle right now. I don't want my other kids to feel this way. I want them to be able to express themselves. I want them to be able to be an individual. I no longer want myself or anyone else to feel like they are burdened by someone else's expectations and opinions. That's why I wear my crown proudly. I make sure to shine them out every day because guess what? You and I are special.

Kristen: 28:51

Mm-hmm. That's amazing, Amani. My goodness. You know what I'm trying to stop doing, you guys, is going, mm-hmm. The reason why I do that is because it is hitting what people are saying. But as I'm editing my talks, it's I I do it all the time. Mm-hmm. Mm-mm. And that's me trying not to interject. That's why I started the snapping and then I went to the bell. But oh gosh, I'm trying to stay quiet so that you guys can get all your thoughts out. And oh my goodness, so, so good, Amani. Thank you so much for that. And oh my goodness. Look at one of the messages that Amani picked up from her childhood. You're not safe with anyone but me. Per mom. I'm paraphrasing Amani, if I have that incorrect, as always, please correct me. You're not safe. What a big message. That's a message that is going to move you away from your authentic self. How can it not? You're not safe anywhere. So you're going to become this other version of you. I'm speaking plural here. A person will become another version of themselves to be safe instead of just being that whole authentic and true self, which by the way, when we're in our true self, we're also closer to our intuition because we're out of fear. Please hear that. Fear blocks intuition. Fear is a shout, intuition, instinct is a whisper. I look at intuition and instinct as two soul things, two separate things. All right. I've given talks on that before, so I won't get into that right now. Instinct is like something that your body recognizes as something's not right. Okay, but intuition are messages that literally come from the ethers. Like they come straight from God's source universe, completely different things. Okay. But we move away from that because we're so in fear, and fear is so incredibly loud and enveloping, we can't even trust our instincts and our intuition. So moving closer to your true self, what happens? You start to hear. Now it can be that you do hear it still in a fear state. That can that can come up. Okay, I'm not saying that you can't, but you more readily, because you've cleared away the cacophony of noise and fear that is running your insides. And so when those things come up, because how many times have we had something come up and we just fluffed it off? We felt it, we saw it, we heard it, and we fluffed it off for whatever reason. And later went, oh, I wish I would have followed that instinct or that inner nudge, that inner knowing, that voice I heard, that message I received, I wish I would have followed that. And typically that's because there's so much noise that we don't get to sit with it because we're onto the next thing due to fear. Okay, aspects of the false self. Oh, I see Stephen. Stephen, if you could hang and let me unpack the false self, that would be fabulous. All right, the false self is a protective identity that our brain created to stay safe, to be accepted, and to avoid rejection. This usually happens in childhood, but it can be expanded upon later in our life. More things can happen. It can add to the whole big thing. Or maybe we weren't afraid in one area, but then we had another trauma, drama, or experience that now made us afraid in that area and created more false beliefs. It's built on coping mechanisms like people pleasing, perfectionism, overachievement, and emotional numbing. Here's the beautiful part because there is a reason for this. It helped you survive, but it disconnects disconnected you from your authentic power. Now, as a child, the reason why this happens in childhood is because we're powerless. We're small in stature, we're small in language, we're small in knowledge, we're small in wisdom. We don't have the strength in so many areas of our life to go up against the elders. So this mechanism comes in to protect us and it sees us through childhood. In this instance, what works in childhood no longer works in adulthood. But now the brain is wired in that way. We're more connected to that false self. And it isn't until the pain of staying that way becomes unbearable that we don't turn towards the right or the left and we say, There's gotta be something more, there's gotta be something better. And that's typically when we look towards healing. And that's why I asked Miss Amani, did you know? Or did you not know? And she said, Yeah, maybe a little both. Because oftentimes we don't know, or when we start to know that this is no longer working for us, we think, is this real? Because it comes oftentimes as a feeling first, a sentient feeling like something's not right. But then we can question ourselves because we are so connected to our false selves. We are not used to believing ourselves. So we may turn against it. Or it could be things like pride. I don't want other people to be right because people have been telling me this for a long time, etc., etc. There could be a lot of reasons. Okay. Qualities of the false self. It's a learned behavior designed to fit in and gain approval. It prioritizes social expectations over personal needs and desires. Who can raise their hand to that? Saying that with a big smile, send up some emojis on the screen if you have an Apple device. Let us know if you can relate to that. Who Amani does, I see she does for sure. Prioritizes social expectation. There we go. Now everybody's popping up. Prioritizing social expectations over personal needs and desires. Let's see who is brave enough to raise their hand on that. We have Ashley, Lisa, Anne, VA, Amani, Peggy, Sarah, a lot of you. Yes. Thanks, guys. Thanks for playing. The reason why I take these polls is because other listeners can see, oh my gosh, other people are relating to this. And half the people in the room have Android devices, so they can't do it. And some people have left the space due to time or what have you. So when we see these claps and emojis coming up on the screen, we feel less alone. We feel less like there's something wrong with us. And I can't emoji. I can do this. Watch me watch my profile. I can disco ball my profile picture by hitting mute off and on. But that's me raising my hand because I've done all of these things. The false self can also involve suppressing or repressing general feelings and needs. How many let's show a show of hands again, you guys? Show of emojis again. Who has repressed or suppressed your genuine feelings, your genuine emotions and your needs to fit in, to get approval, to be liked, to be loved, so that somebody didn't like you. Yes, there we go. Yes, everybody's yeah, we there we go. Blow up. Love it. Love it. Oh my gosh, you guys, you really nailed that one. Yes. Oh my gosh. This is part of the structure. This is human. This is part of what we do. There's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with me. This is all brain. When we can understand that, doesn't that take the pressure off? There's something wrong with me. I suck, I'm a people pleaser, I'm codependent, I'm needy, I'm desperate, I'm scared, I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All the things that we we want to judge ourselves. How about sitting back and go, look at that human doing human things? Look at him and her go. It's one of my favorite things is when I detached from this being so personal, being about my worth. None of this was about my worth. And the more I grow and the more I learn, because I love to learn. And I realized, because I learned, I learned all this organically 15 years ago. I'm learning the brain science now around it. That makes it even better. I think it makes me more effective in teaching it. Because it's not just my word. It's y'all. There's brain science involved here. It can also present a false image to others, often masking deeper insecurities. That's the mask that I was talking about. Well, my masks were fun girl, easygoing girl, pretty girl. Um, can't come up with any others on the way, right, on the on the fly right now, but those were ones. I have to be pretty, I have to wear makeup, I have to do my hair, I have to look nice because people will approve of me when I do so. I have to be easygoing. I can't express my needs. I have to go with the flow, accept the unacceptable. That's when I'm accepted. That's when people like me, that's when I get approval. Fun girl, I gotta be fun. I gotta bring the fun. I gotta bring the entertainment. I gotta make sure it's worth someone's while to hang out with me. Do you know how many genuine people I probably pushed away with all three of those things? Because you know who I attracted, y'all? I attracted the takers. One after the other. Friendships and romantic partners. You could all just lined them up. I was their best dream. She's gonna do whatever I want her to do. Now, this is where I have to throw in a disclaimer based on my personality. I've always been outspoken. I will share my feelings and things like that in certain spaces. So it wasn't 1,000% of the time, but I can tell you it was a filter over my personality. It was a gray cloud over my personality. I don't know how to explain it. It was, yeah, I would speak up at times, but other times I wouldn't. It depends who I was around and if I needed their approval or not, or if there was unconditional love, like with my mother. She got the whole me. Play with this. Think about it. Wonder. Get curious. How much. Of my false self am I being, or how much of it have I healed? Steven, welcome. Thanks for coming.

Steven: 40:08

I love the way you present this. The uh I want to understand how the brain works and all that. That was once I started the counseling and started understanding, that fascinated me. I'm like, so this is why we do the things that we do.

Kristen: 40:25

It makes you feel so normal.

Steven: 40:28

It does. The funny thing is, is once you start to learn all this stuff, that class I took back at 18 really started driving it home. Once you start to learn all this stuff, not only do you see it in yourself, but you see it everywhere.

Kristen: 40:46

It's very clear.

Steven: 40:49

Then the places you see it, you're like, oh my god, not there too. Because it's in my family.

Kristen: 40:58

It's everywhere. We're all doing it.

Steven: 41:01

It is. It's uh I remember a specific example of my next brother down, is two years younger than me, and he's his place is the gathering place for all the holidays and all that stuff. We were all raised Methodists, and and a few of them went off to all these other different things, and I I stuck with it even though I took a hiatus. The kind of the God I believe in uh isn't one that's gonna throw fire in brimstone, but he's gonna have conversations, and I can ask him questions, go, okay, what's this all about? You need to tell me. Oh, you don't do that. And like, he's my dad, he'll tell me. There was one uh discussion with my next brother down. I was explaining some of the stuff I was learning from counseling and all that, and you know, the good book's right there on the table, and he pats it and he says, I don't know nothing about any psychology or anything like that, but all you need to know is right in here. I'm like, okay. Well, that didn't settle. There was a niggling there. My counselor, who is a wonderful man, he used to be a Greek Orthodox priest. Once he got divorced, he couldn't be a priest anymore. So he became a cop. Well, then he's putting more people in jail than that really need help. So we went back and got his master's of counseling. So when we chat, that man draws from several different buckets.

Rachel: 42:30

That's cool.

Steven: 42:32

It is because the Greeks know how words break down because a lot of this stuff, like New Testament's all written in Greek, and so he can break some of that stuff down, and he says, So I ask him about this, and he says, Well, let's talk about it. It just seems wrong, and something seems off, and I'm like, Yeah, and I can't figure it out. And he says, Well, psychology that is the ology, he says, There's all these different ologies that's the study of. I'm like, okay, yeah, I get that. So, what's psyche? And I'm thinking, that's my brain, myself, my whatever. And he says, back when Aristotle and Plato and all these folks were hanging around together explaining it, that was the soul. And so, yeah, soul, the study of the soul has nothing to do with the Bible. I just mom fell off the chair. I mean, we were dying and laughing so much. I'm like, Peter, you can go explain it to my brother, but he won't listen. And I'm not gonna try either, so let's just keep it between us. I just sat there thinking, it's like, brother, I'd like I would love to bring you along on the jersey, but but you don't want to come. And my older sister doesn't want to, my two brothers down doesn't. We don't have the the third one, the youngest brother, we lost him a couple years ago, and so he was sort of open to it because he was actually bipolar and done enough counseling, and so he understood the whole thing.

Kristen: 44:17

Oh, Steven, you timed out. I do have Rachel in the queue. I'm gonna go ahead and bring up Rachel, but hold that thought and please rejoin the queue, and I will bring you up right after Rachel. Because I know you were going somewhere. So when you mentioned is what you said, maybe it was Sacred Rebel. Rachel, welcome up. Thanks for coming.

Rachel: 44:37

I find it ironic the post I shared today, and then you're talking about the false self and the authentic self, because I keep thinking I can't chameleon if I'm meant to be a leopard. Because you're all my I call my authentic self my leopard because they don't change their spots, they don't follow, they don't blend in, they're meant to stand out, and that's what our authentic self does when we truly embrace it. It's meant to stand out, it's meant to shine. We're not meant to fall into the background and blend into whatever crowd we're in when we're authentic, when we're ourselves, we're us, no matter what situation or where you put us. And yeah, I repressed it for years. My poor kitty had collars and muzzles and cages and whatever to keep me small, keep me blending, keep me where I was supposed to be. And then I realized that that wasn't where I was supposed to be. And I like the freedom of just being me. Love me or hate me. That's it. And the faults, I see it. I saw it in me, I see it in some people around me, but they will come to their own and they'll learn. And when they do, then they'll shine. I'm I'm still working on letting the authentic take over and not being small. And I think it intimidates people that are still hanging on to their false self when people are their authentic self. Not I'm not just referring to myself. Like when Amani said people look at her like she's different because she's authentic and it scares people.

Kristen: 46:23

It does.

Rachel: 46:24

It scares them because when something's shining, the dark don't like it. I think authentic people were meant to stick out, and it scares the fake ones.

Kristen: 46:36

It does. I guess I'll say that's my also share. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel. I agree with you completely. I've also seen that people who were taught to dim their light, play small, fit in, don't speak up. When you're around someone like my family, me or my family, which we're all we're so open. We scared the crap out of my husband. He was like, What the what are like he he'd get up and leave the room. He didn't know what to do. He was like, What is and I didn't know what he was doing. He's like, You guys gotta talk about all that? I said, Well, yeah, didn't you guys? No. And I was like, okay. And it's and it's not that there's anything wrong with him. It's that he was taught, he was learned to do that. Like, that's just how you do. So he coming up into my family, it was like, you guys are crazy. It's like, no, we're not. You know, because I could see the same thing about the way he was raised. But it's not here nor there. It's not good or bad. It's just this is what we learned. Well, I don't want to say this is what we learned thus far. I taught my kids to be outspoken on purpose because I wanted them to be able to speak with me, but you know, that's a different era. And I'm saying too many things at the same time. But no, it makes perfect sense. Okay, good. And there's a blower outside my window. Someone's blowing the leaves and it's distracting me. Yeah, it's like watching how other people respond is is so curious.

Rachel: 48:15

It is. I think our fake self wants to fit into that crowd mentality, just kind of follow the others. And my dad used to say, he used to My both my parents have always encouraged our authenticity and us to grow, and he used to say, if everybody else stuck their head Oh, Rachel, pop back up just to finish that sentence.

Kristen: 48:37

I know you're about done and Stephen won't mind. Yes, we're just gonna let her finish that sentence real quick, and then we will continue on. If everybody else wants to put their head in the toilet, is that what you said?

Rachel: 48:47

If everybody else wants to stick their head in the toilet, are you gonna do it just to fit in? And of course when we're kids, we're looking at him like, what are you talking about? That's disgusting. He's like, Well, it's the same thing. If somebody else thinks this or does this, and you don't, well, I say you do, just for their approval.

Kristen: 49:06

In my day it was if somebody's gonna jump off a bridge, are you gonna jump off with them?

Rachel: 49:11

He used to use that one too.

Kristen: 49:13

Okay.

Rachel: 49:14

But I think he got a better reaction out of telling us to stick our head in the toilet.

Kristen: 49:18

And this is why I think there's variables about this, because there's no way people pleasing Kristen would have jumped off a bridge because somebody else did. Plummet to my death. There's no way. But yet I would do other things because I didn't want to rock the boat. So there was limits to what I would do, but still.

Rachel: 49:39

Yeah. You were talking about the fun girl. I was the yes man or yes woman. Oh, ask Rachel, she'll say yes. That was my little mask, is ew. I'm I mean, I'm home rolling my eyes, and it was still, yeah, I'll do it. Then get home and like, oh god, why did I say yes?

Kristen: 49:56

Well, Rachel, thank you for coming up. Thank you. I appreciate you. I am very grateful for everybody who's coming up to share today because we get to see you, and it makes us feel normal, like there's nothing, like there's nothing exclusively wrong with us. And these stories are so relatable. Steven, thank you for coming back.

Steven: 50:22

Sure. Yeah, it's uh I was gonna say the thing about the sacred rebel because uh uh once you said that, I'm like, yeah, I'm definitely that in my family. My ex's family is like church mice, and we're allowed because there were seven of us. You wanted to get in and word in advice, you had to uh wait until the other person took a breath and jump. And Rachel's stuff, oh my gosh, uh, I was getting chills when she was talking about the light stuff because I heard this, and then I realized uh that's what had happened the entire time of my marriage, is uh you don't light a lamp and put a bushel over it. You put it in the middle of the room on a table so it can shine brightly. And yet, once it shines brightly, some people still will not like it. It will expose stuff and that verse, wherever it's from, New Testament, because uh, you know, it doesn't say anything about that. So you have to slowly figure that one out. It's like, okay, uh, I'm shining brightly and I'm still getting uh yelled at because I'm either too bright or they're wearing sunglasses and can't find them, or God knows what.

Kristen: 51:41

I don't know about you, Stephen, but at first, like when my daughter, when I was in the movie, I'm not sure if you heard me say that. I don't know how long you've been on. I went to that movie and other people came in and I said, Oh, yay, more fans. You know, she's like, Mom, initially I thought, ooh, was I out of line? Was that not okay? So, you know, I will still question. It still makes me pause. So I'm not like this bulldozer going, no, screw you, this is who I am. I will pause, I will question, and then I'll say, no, that was okay. That was just my excitement. That was my love, that was my support that was coming out, not anything else. So yeah, people may still try to come in and short circuit us. But you know, for whatever they've got going on, like she's younger, she's probably like, oh, you know, your mom embarrasses you all the time when you're young. But then after I said that, she just kind of she didn't, she didn't argue with it. She was like, Yeah, okay. Like she got it.

Steven: 52:39

Yeah. Because as you said before, you can show up with light and love and kindness, and people will reject it. Well, you were showing up with light and love and kindness for them for the movie because it was going to be more popular the more people came, and it wasn't accepted in that situation because your daughter was embarrassed. You know, that was a realization a couple weeks ago, or maybe it was last week. It's like, wait a minute, what if it's not just my ex that can't stand the light? What if it's a lot of people? And there's for that acceptance is like, uh, you know, dim yourself down so you don't so people don't like start criticizing, or what's wrong with you, or fill in the blank. I know I get it from my family because I will quit I will ask questions, and it's like, I'm just not gonna take what you say at face value. I need to understand where you got it and why you believe it. And well, the minister said it, and I'm like, yeah, I you need to go better. I don't just trust just because somebody said this. I need to know a source and dig in a little bit more. I sense my family doesn't want to do that. Oh, yeah, this is the way it is.

Kristen: 53:52

You're definitely the sacred rebel. They're blindly following and you're questioning.

Steven: 53:56

Well, yeah, and because even in one of the even in my faith, I mean, we've got people in my church, it's like, it's okay to question this. This is how we find answers, this is how we compare notes. This is it's okay to question. And people are still scared of it, and we're not, and I love hanging around those folks because they're not. So I love it.

Kristen: 54:24

Thank you, Steven. Awesome share today. Both of them.

Steven: 54:28

You're welcome. Have a good one.

Kristen: 54:30

You too. Have an amazing day. In regards to what Steven was talking about, if somebody comes at me and tries to tell me that whatever expression that I emoted at that moment is wrong, or I shouldn't have done it, whether it's dancing in a grocery store or whether it's, you know, my kids are the ones that were because what that's what kids do. They're like, mom, stop. That's embarrassing. Don't do that. When I was younger, quite a bit younger, and my older two were doing that, it stopped me. It did. I was like, oh, okay. Because remember, I wasn't where I'm at now. This is many, many years ago. But as I've played with this and worked with this and stepped more firmly and gracefully and authentically into my whole self, my true self, now when somebody says something contrary to me about something like that, what I do is I go within and I ask myself what was the energy and the motive of that? And if my heart was pure and my heart was love and my heart was joy, then I know I did nothing wrong. That's my judge and jury. How did it feel within my body? And that's returning to the true self, is being willing to consult you because your body has all the information it you need. If we just take the time to consult with it, and when we consult with our heart and say, okay, was I trying to get attention? Was I trying to be loud? Was I trying to make people like me or look at me? And it was like, no. I was just so happy in that moment or joyful or loving, and my heart felt big and bursty, and that's why I did what I did. I'm not gonna dim that light. And if it was for a counter reason that's not on the positive growth side of it, if it was for some type of getting, it was coming from my false self, then I go, okay, yeah, that was that was probably not the it's a great way to question ourselves. All righty, we're gonna move into healing the false self and moving into the true self. To heal the false self, we must first recognize it without judgment. Like I've been talking about this entire broadcast. We have to recognize I'm in my false self right now. I'm acting out of fear, I'm seeking approval, I'm silencing my truth, I'm trying to control whatever it might be. Think about this fear, control, silence, judgments, non-acceptance, withholding, trying to get all of those things are constructs of the false self, the lower self, the ego self. So when you begin to ask yourself really powerful questions, like I just talked about, what's my motive? My motive is to control, is to get Bob to do what I want Bob to do. Oh, my motive is to embarrass Trish so that she stops doing that thing. If it's any part of the lower self, that is your awareness. Now you have it in the forefront of your mind. It's up in your forehead, it's right there in the front. And awareness is key. So from there, once we have the awareness of where we're dipping in, here's the five things we can do to heal the false self and move more closely into the true self. Again, this doesn't happen overnight. It ebbs and flows, it waxes and wanes. Sometimes we hit it out of the park, sometimes we backstep. Grace, grace, grace. And number one is always, you guys know, if we were in a meeting room where you could speak out loud, I'd have you guys say, say it with me now. Number one, what is the number one thing I always say everybody to do? Regulate your nervous system. Safety is key. When you feel safe in your own body, your true self has a space to emerge. Feeling safe, calming the nervous system, getting out of survival mode, getting out of fight, flight, freeze, calm the nervous system. That opens our brain to learn because the body feels uh safe. We cannot learn when the body feels unsafe because its only job is to try to survive. Number one, regulate the nervous system. Number two, inner child work, reconnecting with the parts of you that were shamed, ignored, rejected, unloved, uh, validating the feelings of your inner child and give them what they needed, but they didn't receive. I gave a whole amazing talk on reparenting. Uh it's probably about three, four talks ago. Check that one out because I go in depth into this. And it's not as hard as you think. Yes, it takes effort, yes, it takes consistency, but the work itself is not hard. It's about consciousness and awareness and paying attention to what's going on in your mind, in your feels, and in your nervous system at any given time. The third thing is releasing. Shame. This is about unlearning the idea that there is something wrong with us. That there is something fatally flawed, that we're bad. Remember, guilt says I did something bad. Shame says I am something bad. Guilt says I did something wrong. Shame says I am something wrong. Shame makes us feel like we are fatally flawed. There is something wrong with us. Your worth is not conditional. You don't need to perform to be lovable. You are fallible and still lovable. And when we start to release shame through self-love practices, self-acceptance, self-compassion, self-forgiveness, that's when we move closer to the true self. And again, it may be subtle, but it happens instantaneously. And just like if you're building some type of um, let's say a Jenga tower. You put the first one down, then you put the next one down, and the next one down, and then you build on top of each other. That's what healing looks like. So we continually give ourselves self-acceptance, self-compassion, self-forgiveness. We're building this glorious tower. We're returning back to our true self. Number four is rewriting core beliefs. Challenge your old, tired, worn-out mental scripts like, I'm not enough. I have to earn love. My value is how much money I make. I'm obnoxious and no one likes me. I laugh too loud. I'm ugly. I'm not smart enough. One of the most fun things that I experience is when someone brings to me a set of false beliefs and we work on them. When I see that awareness come on in their eyes, when I see the truth arise, it's like a little sunrise coming up in their eyeballs. There's a look on their face that's like, holy moly. You're right. I am worthy. I am valuable. My value is not how much money I make. I'm not obnoxious. So many people like me. I'm plenty enough. I'm intelligent. We're gonna start to see those places in ourself that have contributed to us staying small and staying in people pleasing. They become very loud and clear. When we discover the false beliefs one at a time, what am I thinking right now? What's holding me back? What am I believing to be true? What story am I telling myself? And then we recognize it, and then we ask ourselves, is this true? My value is how much money I make. Is that really true? So if you didn't make any money, your kids wouldn't love you, your boss wouldn't like you, you wouldn't have any friends. No. My kids love me. I'm using this hypothetically. So is it really true? Your only value is how much money you make? No. I'm valuable because they spend time with them and I'm considerate and I'm kind and I'm funny and I'm adventurous, etc., etc. Then you start to see the truth. And that is your true self. You just have mud on it. I often use the metaphor of the muddy Ferrari. I only use the word Ferrari because people get that mental picture of something of really valuable. You can pick your own car, whatever you want. You are a Ferrari. That the traumas, the dramas, the rough experiences threw mud all over you. It's a big pile of mud. You can barely see through this thing, and nobody can see you. You don't see your value, they don't see your value. I mean, some people still will. When we start this healing work, we are quite literally taking a hose to that mud. And it's been on there for a while, so we gotta chip away at it. But when all that mud is gone, and we take a little soap, a little wax, what's left? Your true self. That brilliant, gorgeous red Ferrari. There it is, glimmering, shining. There's not a speck of dirt on it. It knows its value. It doesn't dim its light. And it doesn't want to go back to having mud on it. So when you start to throw these heavy wool blankets off your psyche, you're immediately gonna start to feel free, even if it's just fractionally. You're gonna start to feel free. You're gonna start to feel less weight. And that's where it gets really exciting. At least it was for me. And I'm gonna be honest, and most people I know who have done this work have done said the same thing. That's when the work got exciting because you saw that it works. You started to get the results, and it felt amazing. So you keep going. And then you just keep healing and keep growing and keep healing and keep going and keep healing and keep growing and growing and healing and growing and move closer and closer and closer to your true self. But like I mentioned, the ego brain is there for a reason, it's there to protect us and to keep us small. So it's gonna creep up from time to time. That doesn't mean you're not healed. It doesn't mean the ego just goes completely away. It's part of the reptilian structure of the brain. I have heard there are people who have undone their ego, like Eckhart Tolli. I haven't completely, mine's still there. And I'm okay with that. It serves as a questioning place for me. Or maybe I just still have more healing to do. But when those beliefs come up and I question them and I think about them, each time I'm throwing off another wool blanket. I'm using this metaphor that you guys don't know yet. I think I talk about it in my first book that all of our false beliefs are like a thousand wool blankets on top of us. I think of those little army blankets, and we're trying to walk around with this. And we're trying to function efficiently in the world, but we have all these wool blankets on us. But you take off a wool blanket, you can already feel it, and then another one, then another one, then another one. You're like, oh my gosh, I'm feeling relief. I'm relief, relief, freedom, liberation, autonomy, agency. All of this stuff starts to come out. And you're like, oh, more, more, more, more. You just want to keep throwing those blankets off so that you can rise strong and proud. Be who you are. And the last one is practicing authenticity. This is about speaking your truth, expect expressing your needs, setting boundaries, and allowing your real self to show up even when it's messy. Self-love, baby. Five self-love tenants. I just said them right there. Respect and protect yourself, grace and forgiveness of self, compassionate acceptance of self, loving and supportive self-talk and self-care. When we start to focus on those things within ourselves, and truly, I believe the five self-love tenants are enough. I do. I believe they are so powerful. And please know I coined this phrase first because I know they're gonna take off, or maybe they already have it in somebody else's work and I just don't know about it. They're quite literally the way to heal. The true self is not something we create, it's who we already are beneath the conditioning, beneath the programming that came from our traumas and dramas. It's not something we need to find, we need to buy, we need to build. This is why I talk about reclaiming our personal power. I don't say claiming or going to get or cultivating. I say reclaiming because it's already there. It's just covered up. Our true worth is already there. It's just covered up. Our true self is already there. It's just covered up. But this is what healing work looks like. And we apply it, our life starts to change in ways that is undescribable. When I started doing this work 15 years ago, the results were so profound that I couldn't keep it to myself. I later, I later discovered there's something spiritual about this. Part of our soul is this is we're driven to teach it. We're driven to talk about it. And I think that's part of our whole infrastructure because it helps perpetuate the species. That's why wise sages and mentors and medicine men and women were so revered and honored in certain cultures. Because they knew stuff and they helped the younger ones coming up. That's why I want you guys to come up on my stage all the time. Because I know what you've gone through, what you've learned from it, what you've healed matters in the most amazing and remarkable way. And just to hear how you guys unpack it in your words, in your experiences fulfills me. Gives me so much joy. All right, you guys, that's all that I have for you today. A beautiful conversation. I want to say thank you to all my guests, Amani, Steven, Rachel. I hope I'm not missing anybody. I know some of them came up twice. That might be what I'm thinking. I appreciate you guys for coming up and sharing your heart and your love and your wisdom and your experiences through your authentic voice, your genuine self. We're powerful together. I can get up here and talk by myself, but when you guys all come up here, it provides ingredients that make these talks so full-bodied. If you are listening to this on another platform, please know that you can come join these talks live by downloading the free Noom Vibe app. You can join my talk and many other people and many other speakers' talks. You can listen in. You can, if you have an Apple device, you can share your emojis. There's an ability to send direct messaging to the speakers if you want to share something. And you can come up on the stage and share your stories, your wisdom, your heart, or ask your questions, or get clarity, or talk about what's resonating. The more we talk about this stuff, the more it sticks. Because we're starting to retrain our brain to see life through a different lens. I want to invite anybody who's interested in any of my self-love free resources to please jump into my link tree and claim those. You can do so by clicking in my profile picture here. There is Say No with Confidence. See, I'm trying to read these across the room. I have the self-love checklist. I have a self-love quiz, a people-pleasing quiz, cultivating emotional intelligence. I'm trying to read these across the room, three mini self-love meditations, 20 self-love journaling prompts. These are all tools that can assist you on your journey. If you're listening on another platform, all you need to do is dip into the description and the link will be there. Also for Noom Vibers, I offer 40% off one-on-one coaching with the discount code VibersRock, V-I-V-E-R-S-R-O-C-K. You type that in at checkout and it will give you an automatic 40% off your coaching session. And this is for right now, I'm just keeping it up so you can buy as many sessions as you want with it. At some point in my business, I might shift that up, but for right now, I'm limited. So check that out. If you're curious about getting together with me, having a one-on-one conversation, perhaps going a little bit deeper or asking some questions, getting some insight, take advantage of it, you guys. It's an awesome deal. And I do that because I love this community so much. Also, my book link, my YouTube channel link, and many other things are on my Linktree. So be sure to click my profile picture, check out my Linktree, download any free resources or anything else that you want to do over there. It's pretty simple, easy, clean, straight to the point. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. Remember that you matter. And you are a self healing superstar. You are equipped to heal yourself. Much love, everybody. I'll see you tomorrow.