EP 67: Shedding Your Identity to Find Your Essence with Shoshanna

In this episode, I give a behind the scenes of meeting Hollywood story consultant Michael Hague. We explore how you can get stuck in "identities" you create to avoid facing old fears and wounds. But your essence - your deepest truths - remains underneath.

Learn how to shed limiting beliefs and the masks you wear to please others or hide your vulnerabilities. Discover how embracing your authentic self unleashes opportunity and life's true purpose.

This insightful episode provides perspective on how understanding our desire for safety and fear of vulnerability - though natural - can hold us back from meaningful lives. With courage, we can transform limitations into opportunities and live authentically.  

Stop telling yourself stories about who you are "supposed" to be. Learn to step into your essence - your greatest gift to yourself and others. Find clarity and motivation to finally let go of facades, believe in yourself, and become who you really are. 

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Transcript

​[00:00:00] 

Today is inspired by Michael Hague. He is a Hollywood screenwriter and movie consultant, and he actually worked on the movie hitch as well as a karate kid, and he is just one of the most loving, kind, funny humans. I got a chance to sit next to him today at a in-person mastermind. I'm with my partner and what was so cool about this is those of you who remember right before I launched Storytelling Mastery Lost.

Last September, October, I went to LA for a four day screenwriting immersion. Called Story by Robert McKee. And so it's really cool because they're kind of around the same age, these Hollywood guys in the same industry. And so I got to ask Michael Haig today, like, Hey, are you friends with Robert McKee?

Like, what's the deal here? Because they have completely different demeanors. These are like Hollywood legends, and he's like, oh, [00:01:00] Rob, like all of us are all buddies and friends. And Robert McKee kind of has this like the world has hardened him persona. Like he doesn't take any shit. He's definitely the buyer in his relationships where meaning he's always willing to walk away.

He's definitely not people pleasing. If you are on your phone or you're talking, he'll kick you out of the class, whereas Michael Hague is like, And we'll talk about the core wound today. He's like, his core wound is he just doesn't wanna upset anybody. He's just so sweet, so kind. And this is a guy who, by the way, will Smith was paying him $3,000 a month on retainer.

We finally asked him, cuz he was in our mastermind breakout session, and he's getting approached by all these super high level entrepreneurs wanting to work with him on his story and his rate. He was like, I. Don't have the diamond capacity and my rates don't make sense. And so it was so cool to be like coaching this man who's clearly [00:02:00] such a legend at raising his rates.

And we're like, we're giving him all these ideas. We're new offers and stuff. So anyway, just the backstory. Awesome moment. But you know how yesterday we were talking about the difference between identity and essence, and this is one of the concepts that Michael Hague brought in of really looking at.

Hollywood movies, it's the emotion capital of. The world. Right? And looking, I love storytelling is because it encourages us to live our life like a movie, to romanticize our life. When we're making decisions, say, well, what's gonna be the story that I'm gonna be proud to live? Well, this decision makes no sense.

That it makes so much sense in the context of this story, makes me money before it even happens. Like I decide how my life is gonna go. I live a damn good story. If I'm a storyteller, then it's my job to live a good story, right? If I don't have stories to tell and I better go create some great stories.

And so in looking at what makes a [00:03:00] really great compelling story on Hollywood, you can see what makes a really great compelling. Worth living life and what's also gonna activate people in my audience. So we talked about essence, and essence really being different than identity. Our identity is a story that we have about ourselves and our identity is always evolving and changing.

Sometimes we forget who we are at our core, our essence. The truth of who we are, which is so far beyond and so much bigger and formless and unborn and dying, however spiritual you are, than our identities. Our interests change the way we present ourselves to the world change. And that's why when we look at our unique genius and our life path, it often transcends any kind of job description or name or title.

I like to think that my. Purpose, my zone of genius. My unique place of mastery is helping [00:04:00] women find creative ways to exhale

into a state of relaxation and self-love so that they can unlock the power to create. What was formally impossible to them. So the limitless potential that lives on the other side of transmuting shame and power, essentially. Right? And that's my purpose. And I could be a writer, I could be a speaker, I could be on stages, I could have my identity shape shift, but the essence, that's the unique calling of my truth, my essence, right?

When you strip away all of the armor and identity, the armor and identity, what is left? So I'm gonna say this quote once, and I'll say it again. Michael said, identities are the false selves you present to the world to protect yourself from the fear that grew out of the belief that was instilled by the [00:05:00] wound that happened long ago.

So in every movie. In every script, there's the Heroes Outer Journey and the Hero's Inner Journey. And Storytelling Mastery is the most incredible program I already feel, and I'm gonna add modules and q and as and stuff when I do it next for my vortex. But that's in your vault and it's just incredible in the art of story.

And we definitely incorporate elements of screenwriting, who's the hero's outer journey and. You might tell that a lot in your brand, but there's also the hero's inner journey, and this is truly why I think Living Brave has done so well. I didn't know I was doing any of this stuff and storytelling and crafting this story.

It's just this was my lived experience and he said the most significant hero's inner journey as a transformation from living in fear to living courageously. With every main character, we ask, what is the longing or need? Right? Yesterday we talked about desire led striving, like what is it that you really want?

What [00:06:00] is it that they long for or need, but they're afraid to actually go after it. This is always a hero's inner journey, and so complete the sentence. I'd give anything if dot, but I won't do that blank. That's so not me.

Okay. This. Is the thing you must do. I would do anything to be loved and accepted, but sharing the world that I have general herpes, but accepting myself for all that I am, I won't do that. That's so not me. I'm so ashamed of myself. And this comes from the wound, right? Why we do this? It's a protection mechanism.

A wound is an unhealed source of continued pain. Whether that's in the past or a continued pain, and we build the belief around our wound, right? A belief is a story [00:07:00] of what happens. So beliefs are always logical, but never true. Okay? These beliefs, they're always logical. They make sense, of course. But they're never true.

They feel bad in your body, right? And so the identities are false selves. You present to the world to protect yourself from the fear that grew out of the belief, cuz the belief creates a fear and avoidance protection that was instilled by the wound that happened long ago. So in screenwriting, they ask, what does this character have the potential to become if they only had the courage?

The only way the hero can achieve the goal is if they're willing to get rid of the identity and come into their essence. To be vulnerable and share, this is who I really am. If you think about any movie, [00:08:00] right, where someone is posturing, they have this identity that's protecting them right from the wound, they have a belief that's creating fear and they're posturing an identity.

They'll never get what they really want. And you know this in the movie, unless they're willing to lay down the armor. And do the thing they're once unwilling to do and be brave and live courageously. When they do this, they seize to exist. The identity seize to exist. So what happens? A death,

you can have what you dream of, but it will kill you. There's an inner conflict. This is a hero's inner journey, right? Maybe it will kill a facade that you're perfect when you're finally vulnerable and authentic. And so this is the inner struggle. You can be safe and unfulfilled, or [00:09:00] you can be fulfilled and scared shitless.

What do you choose?