Lukewarm vs Fiery: Which Version of Yourself Are You Actually Living As?

You can be happy and grateful and still feel like a lukewarm version of yourself. In this episode I'm starting Project Me, my twelve-month experiment in getting to know who I actually am, and catching all the small ways I'd been settling on autopilot without even noticing.

• What Project Me is, and why it goes deeper than a glow up
• Starting small with my pyjamas, and why where you begin matters
• The tattoos I'm removing, and the people-pleasing story behind one of them
• The fawn response, and how it quietly shapes everyday choices
• The honest conversation with my hairdresser, and what putting myself first really asked of me
• Using my Human Design and the astrological seasons to pace the whole thing

If you'd like to follow along as Project Me unfolds, come and join me on my newsletter, Magnetic Musings here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

The Honesty Podcast is a space for women who know that they're meant for a life that's full of magic, excitement, and wonder. If you're ready to reconnect with your power and listen to that inner knowing that says you're meant for more, grab a tea, take a breath, and let's begin. Hi, and welcome back to the Honesty Podcast. In today's episode, I am going to be talking about Project Me, which is basically a project I have decided to do for the next 12 months on getting to know myself, making decisions from my intuition and from a place of alignment and becoming the best version of myself. Because I had a moment recently where I realized that I didn't feel like I was living to my full potential. I was happy and very grateful for the people in my life and the opportunities, but I was settling in a lot of places because it felt familiar and safe where I could actually be putting intention and attention behind it and upgrading the life that I'm living. And I think we're alive at a time where there's so much possibility and opportunity, and I wasn't taking advantage of that. So I have created Project Me. I think it's a little bit like a glow-up, but it's a lot deeper than that. It's me getting to know who I am from the inside out and then making decisions based on that. I have split it into five categories. I'm gonna be doing style, fun, passions, health and fitness, and then deeper spiritual connection. I think sometimes some of the themes will run into the other themes, which is totally fine. Again, I'm not gonna make it super strict. It's just literally the whole point, the intention behind it is me truly getting to know myself so that I can live my life as the best version of myself, and I've given myself at least 12 months because I really want to put a lot of energy behind this, and it means a lot to shed this old skin and be who I'm meant to be in this world, who I was born to be. The reason I have put style is because I have spent a lot of my life buying clothes, picking certain outfits because either I was following a trend and it really didn't suit me, or I was panic buying and I had an event coming up or a holiday, and it was just a quick buy something in the shop that's cheap, or going on to vintage and buying things that were cheap. Again, there was no real intention behind it, it's sort of curating outfits because it's there and it's what I've always worn. Rather than okay, do I really like this? Does it suit me? Does it flatter me? Is the colour palette bringing out my features? And I had definitely been on autopilot when it came to my fashion sense, and I think that actually from being a little girl, I really did love fashion. I wanted to be a designer at school, like I had my whole designer name picked out, and I really love buying vogue all the time, so I just thought, why am I settling in this area? I know that it seems like something external, but for me, fabrics and clothing and materials have an energy about them. The way that we feel in clothes has an energy about it. If I just throw something on and it doesn't feel right, then I'm not gonna step out the front door or turn up and do this podcast as the best version of myself. I'm not gonna give it 100%, I'm not gonna turn up to an event and feel like speaking to everyone and being in photos with people, and yeah, okay, I think some people might say, Well, you know, you shouldn't have to feel a certain way in clothing to be the best version of yourself, but I think that's bullshit, and I know that when we wear something that feels nice and we love what we're wearing, then we're gonna turn up in a certain way. So I really wanted that to be a priority this year, and so this is where I started with Project Me. I decided to look at my pyjamas because we start and end the day wearing our nightwear, and I was just collecting random bits of pyjamas. Sometimes I'd even stolen my partners and old monkey gym tops that I didn't want to wear anymore, with suddenly becoming pajama tops, and I didn't feel nice, I didn't feel sexy, I didn't feel like the best version of me, and it does start to trickle into different things, you know. You sat with your partner on the setting. Was I in my feminine energy? No, because I was literally sat in sloppy clothes that definitely did not make me feel good. So I thought, right, well, I'm gonna start here because it's an easy place to begin. I threw away all of my old pajamas, I went on to vintage with intention and bought matching pajama sets from my favourite shops, which are anthropology and free people, and I had seen some slippers at Christmas, these big fluffy slippers, and I found some on Vinted. So I was like, well, this is absolutely aligned. So I bought them and it has made such a difference. I just feel so luxurious and elegant and bougie walking around my apartment wearing a matching set and these big fluffy slippers, getting my coffee in the morning, doing my meditations, it just feels really nice because I have put intention behind it and I have thought about what's going to make me feel good. So, with the proof of that, having had the proof from the pajamas that it really does work, I then decided to go out to free people and I tried on loads of clothes. I tried on loads of different outfits that I hadn't done before, and it was really fun. I have made the decision to sell or give to charity everything in my wardrobe that does not align with me anymore. And I had got to this point where I was going into my wardrobe on a daily basis and picking out the same outfits because it was convenient, because I genuinely couldn't put good outfits together, and I think, especially after doing this podcast and wanting to turn off and feel good in outfits, I began to realise just how settled I had become in what I wore. So it's a really nice way for me to again connect with what feels good for me and start stretching that muscle ready for the bigger things that obviously I'm gonna have to go through during this journey. And it is really fun as well. Like I really have enjoyed doing this so far, and it's only been a couple of weeks. I have also made a decision to get some tattoos removed because again, I just felt like I was settling with them. A big reason for this is that I'm such a spontaneous person. I am a Sagittarius sun, an Aries moon, and I do feel like I need to feel stimulated by doing different things, you know, moving to different places, like I've lived in so many different countries in my life. Obviously, I'm not doing that right now, love Edinburgh so much, but I think because quite a few areas of my life feel settled, doing things like going and getting a tattoo or getting a different hairstyle, changing my clothes up is my way of that fire moving in different directions and feeling like it's being given life, even if it's in a small way, it's not in these big dramatic changes which I have done in the past. And so I went and got this cute tattoo on my arm of a shell and a little uh pattern underneath, and it felt really nice to just go and do something a little bit spontaneous, and that made me realise that I didn't like some of my other tattoos. I already knew that, but it made me realise that I was settling by keeping them on my body. And one of my really good friends in Edinburgh, who is actually my facial lady and my waxing lady, and we've become really good friends because I've been going to her for four years, has become trained in laser tattoo removal. So because I trust her so much and she's very passionate about what she does, it just felt like again, divine timing, this is the right time for me to get certain tattoos removed. Having looked at the tattoos as well, it also just made me reflect on the fact that I have been doing the inner work now for many years, and I feel like when we start to focus on ourselves and shed old narratives, challenge ourselves, question why we're doing certain things, I feel like it comes in different stages. So for me, for the last few years, it's been around people pleasing. Am I being honest? Am I telling my truth? Am I sharing my truth? Or am I going along with things because it's easier, because I want to avoid conflict, because I'm putting that person's needs before my own and I don't want to set a boundary? All of these things, I think that's been a very concentrated area for me for the last couple of years, is not creating excuses if I want to back out of going to a meal, or yeah, just being honest instead of telling little white lies, instead of creating excuses, which has a certain energy about it, and I just didn't want to operate from that place anymore, especially as I'm growing, and I just want to be so authentic. And being honest doesn't mean being mean, it's actually honouring that other person as well by being honest with them. Six years ago, when I got one of the tattoos that I'm having removed, I actually got that tattoo because I didn't want to upset the tattoo artist by telling them that it was too big and not what I wanted, which is wild, isn't it? But I was in Guatemala, I don't think anybody at the tattoo studio spoke English, everyone was speaking Spanish. And rather than stick up for myself and say, no, this is really not what the vibe that I was going for, I actually got a tattoo. I cried so much after it, and it's my fault because I didn't voice that I didn't like it. I actually got it instead of having a confrontational conversation, which just shows where I was at, and that is the phone response. In our stress responses, it's where we would rather people please than deal with you know the stress that comes up in the body. But yeah, it was definitely a huge stress response that I would automatically go to because I could not deal with any form of confrontation, which again is just something I've been actively working on now for the last five years. My partner's been amazing because he thrives in confrontational situations, he's all about being honest. So I think even having somebody call me out on that behaviour was really beneficial because it's made me take a deep breath, regulate myself, and actually have the conversations. It was nice to look back on the version of me that got the tattoo, knowing that I genuinely am not that version anymore. And having difficult conversations is going to be part of being our best version of self. An example of this is that for the last couple of years I've been going to a hairdresser in Edinburgh and I absolutely love them, I love their energy, I love what they do, but they don't do things like a full bleach and tone, and being able to play around with my hair is something that I love to do. So when things are maybe feeling a little bit stagnant, going and dyeing my hair bright pink is just something I would have always done in the past, and not being able to do that whilst being in Edinburgh because that's just not what my hairdresser does, has again been an area that I've been settling on. So I've had to have a really difficult conversation recently where I have changed hairdresser, but when you're friends with that person and you really respect them, it's not nice, it was something that was eating away at me, but ultimately I was doing it not because they were a bad hairdresser, but just because I needed a change and I needed to put myself first, and it can really show up in small areas like that where we don't want to rock the boat, so we just go along with it, but eventually it does start eating away at us, especially if okay, you've got the hairdresser and then you've got the tattoo that you don't like, and then you are going and doing activities with people where actually you don't really want to do them activities, and eventually it builds up, and you look at yourself and you think, Well, who is this? Who am I? What do I actually like? What am I going along with? And I think that's where I had got to, where I was just so used to going with the flow and doing what everybody else wanted. I'd managed to work on the people pleasing in big moments, like, okay, I really don't want to do this big thing, so I'm gonna have to have this conversation with this person. But in everyday life, in all of these micro areas, I was still very much operating from okay, what's the easiest route and what do other people want to do, and what is just safe and secure, rather than does this truly align with who I am? Is this what I want? What are my opinions? What do I want to do for fun? Really questioning and challenging myself around this has been an eye-opener because I think I've been going with what other people want for so long that again, that's why I felt like a lukewarm version of myself. I didn't feel like the best version of myself because I wasn't being myself. And I think we should challenge this all the time. We should really look and journal and reflect on okay, what is it that I want to do versus what am I doing because it's easy or it's what everybody else wants to do, and start to make small changes. For me, obviously, this is going to be a 12-month project, but there was definitely a moment where I just knew that if I continued like this, I would become an even bigger shell of myself, and I don't want that. Life is too short, life is too precious, and I have the options and choices to make better and more aligned decisions in my life, which is why I'm doing this, and I think that's why I put fun on there as well, because I do a lot of amazing things, I have amazing friends here in Edinburgh, but I know that people will bring things to the table, like activities to the table or suggestions, and I'll do it, and I have a really good time doing it. But I've just got so used to doing what everybody else's version of fun is that I again I was like, what am I doing that I find fun? What do I find fun? What are my passions? What are my opinions? And so that's what I really want to hone in on in this next year, so that when I turn up in conversations, I can fully back who I am and what I believe in, what I stand for, instead of again just going with the easy route and what everybody else is doing, because we lose ourselves so much when we do that. I also really wanted to use human design while doing this project because as a projector in human design, which is one of the energy types, I don't really have a lot of energy, and I needed to make sure that I wasn't operating from my not version of self, which is to go, go, go and do and really push through, even though it'll lead to burnout. And I know it might sound like, well, you're doing a project me, so why would you burn out? But it's really interesting how the mind begins to work because as soon as I started to create a list and think about recording content and sharing my wisdom with the world, like the need to do loads became really loud when that is not what this is about at all. And I'm not here to be a content creator, I'm here to share my learnings and my wisdom with an audience to hopefully resonate with somebody and get you to question and start changing your life as well. So using my human design has allowed me to just slow down and be honest about what would end up burning me out, where the mind was becoming really loud to drop back into my body and actually create a plan of action that feels nice, not overwhelming, feels like a genuine flow, and then also to bring astrology into it a little bit because we have astrological seasons and we have just entered cancer season, which is ruled by the moon. It's all about using your intuition, which is this whole project. So I just thought, wow, what a great timing because I can use my intuition when it comes to doing this project because I'm spending cancer season really learning about all of that, and then when it goes into Leo season, which is courageousness and open heart, I've decided to learn how to DJ. So again, just bringing that fun element into it and really going with the seasons, and then just taking it from there instead of making a big 12-month plan, I am just taking it one month at a time. I'm seeing what comes up, what comes through, and just really tuning into what feels authentic for me. So I can't wait to share more. I am feeling really good about it. It's allowed me to actually create content. I've been creating reels on Instagram for the first time in ages because I've felt like sharing, because it feels really good to share. So I can't wait to keep this going. I'm gonna end the podcast here, but I hope you have a beautiful week and I will see you in the next episode.