Releasing Compartmentalization

I’ve been active on social media for about 15 years, and a truly “public figure” due to podcasting for nearly 5. My introduction into the social media world and the podcasting world was very uninhibited. I said whatever ridiculous or crude thing came to mind. Even if I was a bit embarrassed the next day, I still went right on every podcast episode, not thinking a bit about what I said before I said it. This painted a picture for many about who I was and what my personality consisted of. 

In the past couple of years or so, I’ve found myself feeling some shame around the ways that I’d always been so out loud all the time. I was starting to hate that people who only knew me from Away With Words The Podcast saw me as this hyper-sexual person who was always drunk. On the flip side, people who only saw me doing tarot or knew me from Your Morning Message thought of me as just a hippy. No one said these things to me verbatim, but I had my reasons for believing that this is just how I was thought of. Mostly because this is what I thought of myself. I was putting myself in boxes, so it felt pretty obvious that other people were doing the same. 

The thing about our minds and our egos is that they really want to keep us safe by proving us right. So, inevitably, I did come across people who showed me in some way or another that these were the ways they thought of me. So, while it wasn’t everyone or all the time, I felt affirmed in my low feelings about who I must be. Looking back over the years now, I can clearly remember moments when I was forcing myself into those roles. That’s who I’d shown people that I was, so that’s who I always had to be. 

I always had to be shocking, and sexual, and funny, and down to drink. Can’t forget happy and positive, too. I’d also picked those up along the way. I can see now how trying to fit into these boxes didn’t just affect the version of me who had an audience, it also affected who I was alone. I was becoming a victim to stereotypes that really had nothing to do with me. Either fighting to be them or rebel against them, I can see now how taxing it’d become. 

Therapy began to uncover some of the reasons I felt the need to perform in these ways all the time. I was seeing how some things were just trauma responses, and how anxiety kept me from wanting to show people my evolution. I was so afraid of seeming “fake”. I thought that if I came out now as a person nearly opposite as the person I showed up as before, I wouldn’t seem authentic. This anxiety really turned the drama up on everything I was thinking. As I sit here now, I can see how it was never that deep. 

I do Love sex, and I do Love drinking. That just doesn’t make me a person who lacks standards or self control. I am rooted in positivity, but I get really sad too, and hurt, and disappointed, angry even. I’m also extremely rooted in my spirituality, which I choose to highlight in my latest podcast Your Morning Message, and by showing my social media friends my tarot journey. All of these things are action items, not who I am. I’m just a person with layers like everyone else. 

The most important thing to me, right now, is coming into all spaces with my full self. Every single thing that I am. All of my passions and interests. Me. As a person who worked in the HR space for 7 years, I certainly understand that all things are not for all spaces. However, the anxiety that comes from trying to hide some of those things in a space, is getting released right here and now. It’s one thing to know that there’s a time and a place for certain things, but a totally different thing to attempt to completely omit parts of who you are for the space you’re in. 

So, in all spaces, I’m bringing me. Whoever I am that day. I will act as if I am already welcome. Especially in the spaces that I hold for myself.