Episode 23: Authenticity vs Attachment: Why You Keep Abandoning Yourself

Have you ever said yes when you meant no? Found yourself people pleasing, overworking, or chasing approval even when it doesn't feel aligned?

In this episode of Less Stress, More Magic, we're exploring authenticity vs attachment—why so many women unintentionally abandon themselves in order to belong, and how nervous system conditioning can pull us away from who we truly are.

You'll learn why attachment is essential for survival in childhood, how self-abandonment often develops through completely normal life experiences, and how tools like Human Design can help you reconnect with your authentic self.

In this episode, we explore:

✨ The difference between authenticity and attachment
✨ Why people pleasing can disconnect you from true belonging
✨ How childhood conditioning shapes adult behavior
✨ The nervous system's role in self-abandonment
✨ The difference between fitting in and belonging
✨ My personal journey through burnout and overworking
✨ How Human Design can support self-awareness and self-trust
✨ Why Human Design works best as a tool, not a rule

I also reference the book The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling by James Hillman, which explores the idea that each of us comes into the world with a unique purpose and innate gifts waiting to be expressed.

🎁 Get your free Human Design chart:
https://jovianarchive.com/pages/get-your-human-design-chart

✨ Ready for a personalized Human Design + Nervous System Guide?

Get your Designed For Ease™ Personalized Guide for 50% off through July 2026 with code MAGIC:
https://erinwallencoaching.myflodesk.com/designedforease

If you're ready to stop abandoning yourself and start creating a life that feels aligned, this episode is for you.

#HumanDesign #Authenticity #PeoplePleasing #NervousSystemRegulation #SelfTrust #PersonalGrowth #BurnoutRecovery

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Less Stress, More Magic Podcast. I'm your host, Erin Wallen, stress freedom coach, intuitive strategist, and former clinical pharmacist. This show is for busy, capable women with big goals who are ready to stop living with so much stress and are ready for a more ease-based, effective way of living and working. Here, we explore how stress is a survival response, not a success strategy, and how regulating your nervous system leads to more clarity, better decisions, and everyday magic. I can't wait to share with you. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the Less Stress, More Magic podcast. I have a topic today that I have been thinking about for weeks, if not months, and I am very excited to just dive in and talk to you today about authenticity versus attachment. So I'm gonna explain what that means. I'm gonna explain the magic of authenticity, the magic of coming back to being more and more authentic, to kind of this kind of uncovering that this lifelong journey and really what gets in the way. And as humans, what is so normal that we have some things that cover up our authenticity that are natural in our human development? So we're gonna talk all about that, and I'm gonna start introducing you to some of my favorite tools, including human design, which helps you use it as a tool, not a rule, to really understand yourself better. So it's for me, it's been a tool that has helped me connect back to my authenticity, and I'm gonna talk a little bit more about that today. I will say that if you have not seen already, I have a brand new offer this summer called Designed by Ease. And I have created this beautiful guide that I customize to you and your human design, and I intermix it with all my expertise in the nervous system and manifestation. And when you purchase this guide, you are gonna get a 20-page plus digital guide that you can print out or you can read through that really helps start for you to understand your own unique authenticity. So it has been really fun creating these guides, and I have decided for this month of July, if you're listening in real time, July 2020, I am gonna be doing 50% off these guides for this month only because I really want this focus to get into as many hands as possible. So if you're interested, the link is in the show notes. You can use code MAGIC anytime in July, and you will save 50% off your personalized guide. Alright, so before we dive in, I am going to invite us into a moment of grounding. What feels really good to me today is putting both hands on my heart. So maybe you're in a place where you can't do that, and that is totally fine. Maybe you can just visualize just supporting yourself in your heart. Maybe that looks like just bringing your attention to your heart space or focusing on breathing into your heart. If you're able to put your hands on your heart, you can just start to notice how you feel the beating through your hands. Your heart is constantly supporting you, giving it love and gratitude, and just taking a beat to come into your body wherever you are. Your beautiful, unique essence that is here to support you. We're gonna talk all about that today. So thank you for being here. So, yeah, authenticity versus attachment. So I'm gonna just start with some things that I believe personally believe that we are all here for a reason. If we are here on earth, we have come to live out a divine calling, and we are all so unique and different, and we almost have like this unique imprint that we are here to serve. I've been starting to read um the book The Soul's Code, which is fascinating, or The Soul's Calling. I'll have to, I'll put it a link in the show notes so you can look it up. But again, it just talks about that how like we are almost here for this unique purpose. And it's been interesting in the book too, because they talk about how going back early in childhood, sometimes we can find more clues about what is most true and authentic to us. And then over time we kind of cover it up by life. So I want to talk about like this natural covering up of our authenticity that happens. So I said this um this podcast is all about authenticity versus attachment. And what happens as humans, as you know, like a newborn does not come into the world able to care for itself, unlike other mammals who can kind of get up and start taking care of themselves much quicker than humans. Humans need a lot of care. And we naturally need attachment to others to survive, right? No newborn would survive without care from adults, other caregivers, right? So attachment when we are born is prioritized higher in terms of our survival hierarchy than authenticity. But as humans, we need both. And again, we are very much here to live out a divine and unique calling, which makes like which relies on us being our most authentic self. So what happens is we come to Earth, we naturally start getting cues from caregivers, even in our best case scenarios and very loving homes, that maybe certain parts of our authenticity are not accepted. And then we start covering them up and learning different ways of being. So it is so natural. No one, I think, even in the best case scenarios, is fully in their most authentic self. Like it's this coming home, and I think that is part of our journey, right? It almost becomes stronger when we see the other side of it. So I think that's a beautiful point that I just want to like reinforce too. We will feel the magic of authenticity more when we have experienced not being authentic. And it I think sometimes we use this term like, oh, they're being inauthentic. And that's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about this natural conditioning that happens as we grow up in the world that we live in, and it's this coming back to ourselves. So I think for all of us, there are layers we can continue to choose to remove and uncover as we come back to our most authentic self, and the work never ends. So it's never like we are gonna get to a hundred percent authenticity all the time, and then we've arrived. But I truly believe it's like every micro layer of removing of conditioning and coming back to ourselves creates this intense ripple of magic. So, as I said, we need we need connection to survive, we need our caregivers to survive. So, as children, a belonging is prioritized over our need for authenticity. And the truth is, our brains and nervous systems are like sponges when we are young. So we take on things as truth, as fact when we are really young. So we may have learned, like for myself, and again, this is not because anything was done wrong, but just that like we work hard to create results, right? Like if you put your mind to anything, if you're willing to work hard, you can achieve whatever you want. So again, I feel very blessed that my parents did the best that they could. I'm doing the best that I could, and I'm still messing up, right? Because that's part of the human experience. And their perception, how you succeed in life, is like working hard to create results, right? And when I zoom out, part of my journey in the past decade has really been finding that is actually not what serves me the best. I have created a lot of results that way in the past, but human design has been a tool that has helped me truly identify that like my unique type is not one that works for results. I create results through my energy, through, and I think all of us are like this, but on in different ways and in different seasons and how we express it. So, really just knowing number one, we learn in childhood, we pick up cues from our caregivers, we are gonna cover up some of our natural authenticity in order to belong. And we can be taking on these cues that are even not meant to be taken on that way to become a certain type of of how we express in the world. So when we are adults and we're starting to choose and realize, okay, like belonging, we definitely still need to belong, but we actually can't feel belonging if we're being inauthentic. So you may have felt this. I feel like I have definitely had seasons of feeling like I was a people pleaser. So I would actually not feel that deep sense of belonging when I was in that people-pleasing mode. People might have quote unquote liked me. I might have gotten along, I might not have rocked the boat, but I did not leave feeling like really like I belonged because I was not being truly authentic, right? And if we're not authentic, we can't actually feel that sense of belonging. So that might be another interesting conversation for the future about like fitting in versus belonging, but really knowing, okay, number one, yes, I need to belong, and yes, I need authenticity as humans, as a human being. Those are two core needs. As children, we're gonna focus on. I use the term belonging, but it's attachment. So it's feeling accepted. That is really like there, people are gonna care for me. They're gonna take my survival is not a threat. And we kind of cover up things that will we think might get in the way. And a lot of times it's our authentic expression. Maybe it's showing our emotions, right? Maybe it is, you know, not being social or being too social, right? It can go in any different way that makes us maybe get a cue that it that is not accepted, that makes us start to hide our most authentic expression. So as we get older and as we realize, okay, I want to return to a more authentic version of myself, and we always have an option and journey to go down this road if we choose, it is it takes more intention because as adults, our nervous systems, our brains can change throughout our entire life, which is such a gift. But unlike as children, where it's spongy, we take on what we see as fact and it's absorbed really quickly. As adults, it takes intention and repetition. So if I choose to create a new pathway around the example I gave earlier, that I can show up in my energy and let my energy create results, more so than effort creating results, I can say that and think that in my mind. But in order to create that new pathway that's a default, I have to repeat that and practice that and build evidence around that. And there's so many ways this can show up. So for me, as I mentioned with human design, human design is something that I was exposed to about 10 years ago. And it was really serendipitous how this happened because I was in a mastermind with a few other women, and actually, one of the other women that was in this mastermind brought up human design. So it was not even the coach that I had hired to work within this container as a client, someone else within this cohort. And kind of like as a side note, she brought up human design, and I was like, What is that? I had never heard that before. So we kind of had the side conversation about human design. I actually hired her to give me a human design reading and really explain what exactly it is because when you first look it up, it looks like a foreign language. It's something that it I feel like there's so many layers to it. Again, I'm probably about 10 years in. I certainly don't know all the things, and I constantly am learning more that oftentimes makes me feel really seen and helps me return the truth of who I am. But I certainly don't use it as a rule. I always use it as a tool. And what I mean by this, I don't learn something about human design and say, a hundred percent okay, this is how we're gonna do things. I run it through the filter of does this feel true to me? And only when it feels really true do then I start experimenting with that way. So I think that is such an important nuance because human design is so layered. And I, in a the next episode, I'd like to talk about some of the basic things about human design. Um, so you can start exploring it on like a 101 level. But if it does not resonate for you, let it go. Do not hold on to that because there might be something else in your chart and your human design that explains it deeper. So to come back, to zoom back out when I was working in that mastermind and then hired that woman who was in the program with me to give me a human design reading, and she told me that I was a projector. So 70% of the world is really here to generate, they're able to create results through working. And I have a lot to say about that too, because I think in the world that we live, even those people who are a version of generators can easily overdo the doing andor do the doing that's not in alignment with their highest good. So we're gonna talk about that in a few future episode. But as a projector, and about 20% of people are projectors, and it's the newest type, we've only been around for about 200 years. Projectors are guides and we can see things, and we are here to see and to guide when we're invited in instead of doing. And the more that I understood that about myself, the more I saw in hindsight so much evidence about that when I was in that energy, instead of doing, but stepping back and seeing more than doing, things just happen so much better. It is also really interesting because if you are a projector and every design has its shadows and its gifts, but as projectors, we are the most likely to be deconditioned. We're the most likely to almost amplify the energy outside of us and do things in the opposite way. So for me, my background was as a clinical pharmacist, I worked at a hospital. Um, then I worked at a discharge pharmacy where we would take care of all the patients who were leaving the hospital and make sure that they had everything that they needed. And it was nonstop. We did not have breaks, we came in early, we stayed late, and I was really good at that, right? Like I was really quote unquote good, but it caught up in my system. But I was good at it because I was able to amplify the energy of doing and live and work that way for so long. And what would then happen is then I would leave and I would feel so depleted. So when I got home, I would have absolutely no energy. I would like want to numb out and watch TV or snack or grab a glass of wine and then start the cycle off the next day. And really, like I went in that cycle for so many years and through different versions of things that eventually it caught up to me with burnout, as things always do, right? We get subtle cues that we're out of alignment, and then those cues get louder and louder and louder, and then we're gonna get a smack in the face if we're not listening. And it it finally caught up to me where I had to do things a different way, which this is why I'm here. This is why I'm doing this work. And again, there's gifts in all of it. Like, had I not gotten that loud smack in the face, I probably wouldn't be as passionate about sharing. Like, there's another way to do things, right? We don't have to effort so hard. So even if you're not a projector, as I mentioned, there are way much efforting is in alignment for myself. And it's not that I don't ever do work, but I do work in a different way than I ever did before, and I get results in a different way than I ever did before. And I allowed, you know, fun and play to be part of the journey and the joy and actually what creates more results in my life, which is now so fun. And also it takes intention and effort, right? Because I have that default programming from early on that's still there that tells me, no, we gotta work harder to get results. So I just wanted to plant a seed today about really like considering these two unique human needs that we all have: belonging, attachment, and authenticity, maybe starting to consider how certain things I how maybe certain versions of my authenticity have been hidden in order to attach and maybe what I want to start choosing. And if you are curious to explore human design as a tool to help you touch back into your unique authenticity, I'm gonna talk a little bit more about it next episode, but also you can grab a personalized guide that I'm gonna go really deep into so many different nuances, talk about it in terms of your nervous system, give you reflection questions, give you certain things that you can do specific for you, and then also how you manifest best as your unique design. It's it's been so fun. So you can grab that guide in the show notes at half off this month with that promo code MAGIC. So we'll talk more about it. You can grab the guide. And number one, the first place to start would be you can grab your free chart. So if you want to get your free human design chart, I'm gonna give you a link below. You can Google it. There's so many different places that you can get your free human design chart. I will warn you, it's gonna look like foreign language when you get it. Um, but that might be what you want so you can understand your type. So, as I mentioned, I am a projector. There are five different main types that I'll talk about next time. So if you want to grab your chart before then, so you can understand what your type is, or if you're just like, you know what, I just want to know more about me. I don't want to have to do any work. Grab my design for ease, design by ease guide at half off this month. All right, I think that's everything that I want to share with you today. But I hope you have a beautiful week and I look forward to talking to you next week more about human design as a tool. Back to your authenticity. See you then. Thank you for spending this time with me today. If this episode supported you, you can download my free daily ease reset checklist. It's linked in the show notes and designed to help you shift out of stress and into ease this week. Make sure you're following the podcast so these conversations can meet you each week. I'll see you next time.