What if you fit in everywhere and belong nowhere? Brene Brown said I may fit in for you, but I no longer belong to myself, and it landed hard.

At school I got on with plenty of people and there were always groups cooler than me. So we change who we are instead of finding out who we are. We are born a blank canvas and everybody hands us their colours. Einstein's parents told him not to go near physics. What matters most to me is independence, somebody being able to make their own decisions, and when I am near that my actions and feelings stop fighting each other.

One thing to try: Ask what actually drives you, then ask how that person would show up at an awkward family barbecue.

In this episode

• (0:02) The Brene Brown line that started this one off
• (1:59) Those conversations where you unexpectedly click
• (3:40) School, and the groups that were always cooler than me
• (5:09) Changing who we are instead of finding out who we are
• (8:16) The blank canvas, and everybody handing you their colours
• (9:51) Einstein's parents telling him not to do physics
• (16:18) Independence, and why I am so passionate about it
• (20:38) Discovering your why, because you only get the one life

Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk

Thank you for listening.

Steven

Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.

• Donate paypal.me/stevenwebb or Coffee stevenwebb.uk
• Steven's courses, podcasts and links: stevenwebb.uk

I may fit in for you, but I no longer belong to myself. Brené Brown.

I heard her talking on something this week and she said that quote, and it just hit me

so deeply and it just made me think how much my life I've tried to be. Everybody

else, tried to fit in with everybody else. I'm a people pleaser And I spend my life so much trying

to conform to the way they think, simply because I think they'll like me more or I will feel less

uncomfortable.

But I may not fit in for you, but I no longer belong to myself. And on today's podcast,

discovering the real you,

overcoming expectations, and finding your true self. I'm going to talk about this topic. And I'm going going to look

about how much we're influenced by our parents and mentors and our friends, and all around us. We're going to

look at the peer pressure, we're going to look at the many masks we wear. And then finally, I'm going

to end with embracing our authentic self and who we really are and what that means for us. I'm going

to share a story about Albert Einstein and Jim Carrey, The way they

were really held back by this and how it changed them when they decided to be who they really were.

And I'm going to share my story a little bit about my foundations and what's important to me. And when

I go to what's important for me, that's where my passion lies. That's what makes me angry. That's what makes

me really come alive. That's what, if someone mentions those subjects to me, that's where I come alive. It's like,

yes, you're talking my language. And I feel at home at that point And you know those ad hoc conversations

where you don't expect that conversation and you just click. It could be a complete stranger. It could be just

a friend or it could be a family member that you never realised thought in a certain way, and suddenly

you have this conversation. It's like, oh wow, where did that come from? And you feel nourished and you feel

alive. That's what we're talking about on today's podcast, discovering the real you, overcoming

expectations, and finding your true self.

Welcome to Stillness in the Storms podcast. I'm Steven Webb, your host, and this podcast is here. I share my

experiences. I share different things. I haven't really got an amazing tagline, and it's just about seeing life a little

bit different and finding a little inner peace where you can. So there was a couple of anonymous coffees this

week, so I want to say thank you to them. Thank you to Audra and Mo, and thank you to

Trish, Andrea lisette and Joe, thank you guys. You are awesome. It makes a huge

difference. Um, anyway, let's get on with today's show who you really are that's that's all become

a little more authentic and genuine to our true selves. So first of all I want to go back to

that quote. I may fit in for you, but I no longer belong to myself Brené Brown

Why did that hit me so much I think it hit me because I spent so much of my life

pleasing other people trying to fit in. I was one of those ones at school where I got on with

a lot of people and there was those groups that were cooler than me.

The, you know, the female groups that I could never date, they were all much better looking than me. They

were all like with the in crowd. They were intelligent, and they were clever, and they were brilliant, and they

were very popular. I knew them. I got on well with them They would lend me their pen when I

got to a lesson, when I didn't have one. But I would never be that close to them And then

there was the other group that used to get in a lot of trouble and all that, but they seem

cooler People used to really like them and all that. I'm thinking about the boys in particular now. I was

kind of friends with them and I used to get in trouble with them a little bit, but never really

fitted in with them either. So whichever way I was like I, I could be a bit of a geek

I could be a bit of a troublemaker. I could also be whatever, and I was trying to be everybody

else. And I didn't realise I can remember at one point a friend of mine walked a little bit

funny and dragged his feet and I was like, I want to walk like that. I thought that was cool.

So I practiced walking, dragging my feet. I think I got in trouble at home for it. You know, it's

crazy how much we try to fit in. We think if we fit in we'll be a little more comfortable,

or they'll like us more, they'll love us more. They'll accept us more But we try to change who we

genuinely are instead of trying to find out who we really are. And when I say find out who we

really are, I mean, what is it that drives you? What is it that drives me? What? What is that

passion deep inside that makes you come alive when that topic comes up? When you could be half asleep and

someone mentions it and it's like, this is me This is my moment. This is, you know, I know about

this, and you just come alive about it. And it's really difficult because very often we're in situations

where we're trying to drive it towards what we're passionate about, but instead we're trying to fit in and we're

just trying to go towards them rather than, and it is so difficult. It's so hard. It's so much hard

work being everybody else you know what seven billion people are live now Not one of them are like me.

And trying to be every single one of them was just way too hard work. Okay. I want everybody, but

I said certainly certainly give it a fair crack to be a lot of people, and it was just tiring

and I would be caught out because it wouldn't be genuine. It's like when you lie and then you've got

to have a really good memory when you're trying to be Like other people, the mask falls off

and you see it with other people, don't you? When the mask falls off. But it does. It doesn't mean

they're not being genuine. It means sometimes when we don't feel like we're fitting in there's nothing wrong with, I

suppose, changing and being open-minded to change for the sake of.

You know being so rigid. This is my only identity and I won't change, or when it's a fluid identity.

You know, you move with your life. I get that. And I'm not saying you cannot be and change, but

what I'm saying is it's when we're trying to fit in so much with things that we don't even enjoy,

we might, we might even choose a project because a friend's doing it and because we like that friend

and we we say yes to it because we think we'll fit in better, but we don't give it our

100% all because we're not enjoying it. And we do all that all the time I'm a yes person. I'm

learning to say no and A lot more what I say yes to now, which is a wonderful gift for

my current role going into my new role, is that I've got so many opportunities that I can now say

yes to. The things that really drive me passionately, the things that are so important to me, and then

I don't feel like I'm working, I don't feel like I'm doing anything because it's, it's what genuinely drives me,

our mentors, and our Parents and our friends, they so steer us when

we're children. When we're born, we're a blank canvas and everybody's giving us their colours. You know, let's take the

metaphor of a blank canvas. You know, our parents give us their favourite colours. You're no good at math, so

have this, you know, nobody in our family was any good at mass. Well, you know, that's an opinion. There's

no reason why I might not be good at mass. Well, if you tell me nobody in our family is

good at it, I'm not going to study it. I'm going to believe I'm no good at it, so that

I'm, that's going to become true.

If they say there's no artist or anybody creative in our family. Well, that's an opinion of a parent. Doesn't

mean it's true for me, doesn't mean it's true for you or your children. But that's what we do all

the time, don't we? We allow our family's identity what we believe is in the blood to influence what we

do and what we don't do, so therefore it becomes true.

And that's very, very true when it comes to talent. We think we've got this born talent, but

the truth be known, there isn't a born talent. It's whatever you work at, you become good at you know

If you put hours and hours into anything, you'll become good at it. So if your parents tell you you're

no good at the creative and you don't do it well, it's going to be true. And that's how our

parents shape us you know Albert Einstein had the same problem with his, you know, this is crazy. Albert Einstein's

parents wanted him to do a certain kind of science, and they said, no, you don't want to get into

physics. You don't want to do that. Don't go to that university. And it wasn't his passion. So he ended

up dropping out. He failed his exams, and even going to the next university, he failed the entrance exam

Because it wasn't his passion. It was what his parents were choosing for him. And then when he did find

his passion, well, you know the rest e equals mc squared Don't ask me to explain it. I have no

idea. It's something to do is putting an atom and making a fizzy drink.

I've seen the film, but

yeah, the peer pressure is crazy for us to fit in And I understand why. You know, if you're fitting

in and then you feel like you're, it's more comfortable, you feel like it's more genuine and you feel like

you find your tribe and you find your niche and you find your,

and like I said, it's very fluid moving between these different things. What you fit in within the morning may

not be what you fit in within the evening. You know, I don't always like the same

genre of movie you know If I'm with a friend, I like comedy. I don't like comedy by myself am

I being ungenuine when I say, well, I don't like comedy if I was it's what I enjoy, what I

like doing. But very often we'll bend, won't we? And I can remember even as a teenager and even an

older one, when I'd start dating a new girlfriend or something like that They would say, oh, what's your favourite

kind of movie? And I would say, well, I like this, this, and this. And then they would say something

I go yeah, I agree with you. Yeah. Well, when I said I like that, that's not entirely true it's

like, what was I doing? I feared, not being liked I

may as well turn around and go, well, what's your hobbies? Yeah, I do the same as that. And it's

complete bs, isn't it? But that's what we do and we do it so subconsciously because in evolutionary terms and

psychological terms, it makes sense to fit in. It feels awful, not fitting in, and school is

terrible for it. School is all about the fitting in, you know, school is it's mental how we look at

school. So take this scenario, you, you have a playground where very often between a hundred or a thousand

children are in a playground. They're all going through all kinds of things in their home life. They're going through

all kinds of changes. They're learning about all different things. Their minds are expanding, their emotions are everywhere. They're

learning this whole thing called life and human and all these things And yet we expect them all to get

on and play and be really, really good. And teachers can't even get on in the staff room. You know,

they form groups, they, you know, they have all kinds of trouble, not knocking teachers there, but I'm just saying

how ridiculous it is when we expect everybody just to conform and be good and fit in the groups. It's

complicated and hard work to be anything other than what you are and

You imagine if there was some kind of way in school where we could find out who our true self

is and we write down what's truly important to us, what's really passionate, our foundations, and then we could be

put in that group. Oh

boy, you watch how much we fly, how well we do, how much we grow our wings, because I know

when I found what I find passionate about I I don't have to be motivated to do it. I'm

there. You know, I love helping people. I love reducing suffering, and I don't mind how that happens,

whether it's through politics, whether it's through the podcast or anything. It makes me come alive when someone says, you

help me out. You changed my life. You give me a little more inner peace It's like, wow, okay. I

want to run from it because I'm like, what can I do next time you know That that fear of

showing up and having the spotlight on me is terrifying, but I think that's part of being genuine, right?

Wouldn't that be, wouldn't you be non-genuine if it didn't frighten you? If

you didn't have that fear of letting people down, then you're on the wrong track. If you don't, if you're

doing something in your job And like, you're a decorator there's there's just pick on decorators for a moment. And

not really, I don't mean it. Um, but if you're a decorator and you don't care whether that person is

happy with your decorator or not you're in the wrong job. So of course they care that they must paint

a house and then come back and they say, you've done an amazing job. It's incredible. If they're, if they're

like, yeah, that was dead easy. I can do that. I can do that all day every day. Then it's

not Maybe it's not that genuine. You know, there's there's a fine line between confidence and

cockiness. I suppose.

I'm going a bit off topic, but I always do that, don't I? So let's bring it back to the

many masks we wear, and that comes down to I'm just saying about a painter and decorator. You know on

a normal day, we're a parent, we're a friend, we're, um, a friend to ourself. We might be a doctor,

we might be a nurse You

know, we're a driver. We're all these things, you know, the phone goes and we go to, I'm now a

daughter or a son. Um, you know, I'm not talking about changing sexes while you're on the phone. I'm just

saying you, you might be a female and you might be the daughter when your mum phones, or you might

be that person that is offering advice about health or something like that to a friend that's phoning up. So

we change our many roles But what's really important is that we have that foundation of what's below us, who

we genuinely are, what's really important to us, and bring that to the role rather than trying to do the

role based on how people think you should do it. You know what's really important to me? Independence. A

person's independence. I'm so passionate about that. A person, if they can make their own decisions in life, they should

be able to do it Being paralysed or being, having something wrong with them, which is, in my case, I'm

paralysed and someone coming along and saying I should and should not do things when they have all the choice

of doing those things because they're able-bodied How dare they say to me that, well you've got to be in

bed by a certain time. You've got to do this by a certain time and things like that. Just because

I'm paralysed. No, I'm sorry. That's not the way the world should work. The world should work around

our disabilities, around our, um, things that we find difficult, whether it's mental, whether it's, um, disabilities

or whatever, but we don't, we conform the world to the, the ideal able-bodied person,

the ideal. Normal person in that quote, and everyone else should adapt to

try to be there as close as possible. And it doesn't work like that. And that's why we feel so

incongruent most of the time. That's why our actions are not fitting our thoughts or our feelings.

And that's why there's so much mental health maybe it's the fact that we're asked to do things that we're

not really comfortable with doing We're not really authentically comfortable with it, or we're feeling something different to our

actions or our thoughts. You imagine when all those things line up, so your thoughts and your actions

and your feelings line up as one, and you feel congruent and you feel alive, you know?

We're not talking about riches and money. We're not talking about all those other things. We're just talking about being

in a situation where everything just aligns. What you're doing is what you enjoy is what you're passionate about is

what is important to you, and what you're thinking is what you like thinking. You know that ad hoc

conversation I mentioned earlier that you don't expect to have and suddenly you have this conversation And it could be

a complete stranger in a tea room over a cup of tea as us British people do. You

know? So how do you embrace this authentic self? It's really about sitting down and really getting

to grips with what's important to you, what makes you feel comfortable, what do you enjoy doing? It's as simple

as that. And

you can do a simple exercise of a gratitude and reflection exercise in the morning and night.

So in the morning you can have a gratitude exercise. So you pick three things that you're grateful for that

day that's going to happen, or things you have, and a reflection on how you bring an

authentic, genuine, true self to that day and those things. So if you're a deeply caring person, how does that

person show up caring in this situation It might be an awkward family barbecue but if you're deeply caring

and it's not normally goes that way at a family barbecue, how do you show up as that deeply caring

person at the barbecue If you're open-minded and wise, or if you're the funny one, or how do you show

up as that of the barbecue so you feel genuine rather than trying to show up as the person they

think you are, the person you've been labeled all your life. Imagine that. Imagine showing up as you really are,

and then the practice in the evening would be grateful for three things that happened that day, and how did

you show up genuinely as your true self.

I, hopefully that helps. Hopefully it gives you some thoughts on who you really are, what's really important to you,

and if you want to carry on this topic Maybe I can do a second podcast that spells out the

actual practices and how we do it and why it's important. And we can do exercises that helps us

discover simon sinnet says it in a similar way is discover your why and

it's so important. You've only got one life. You've got one life. Do it your way from, do the actions

that you want to do. I know it's difficult We're living through a time where money is fundamentally important. We've

got a capitalist system that is genuinely unfair. We've got a health crisis on our hands. We've got a cost

of living crisis. We've got all these things. So it's really difficult when you're working and when you're doing these

things to do what you truly want to do. I'm not saying give up your job and suddenly going to

all the world. If that's in your blood and all that But I'm saying read the books that you feel

genuine about. Listen to the podcast that resonate. Have the conversations with friends. You know, if you are

doing a job, how do you show up as you doing that job as opposed to somebody else doing the

job You know, you may be a carer and you may be a really well-organized carer How do you, how

do you show up as A deeper caring, kindness carer, a wise carer, you know, I don't know, whatever. Whatever

really, really floats your boat, I suppose. Whatever really makes you feel genuine. How do you do

it?

It's really, it's really quite difficult. It's, I spent a lifetime trying to find it and I think, I think

I found it.

What, what bugs me What is really important? What injustices do I feel? That's where it's really important. What challenges

do I enjoy doing? Do I never tire or run away from, you

know, that's where your passion is. That's where your gift is. That's where your joy is. That's where your inner

peace is. You know, you have this one life imagine getting to the end of your life, and they said,

yeah, you never really did find what Um really drove you. And I'm not saying there's one particular thing this

changes through your life. Don't think that you'll get to, you've got this one single purpose and you've got to

find it. You've got to turn over every haystack. You've got to look in every part of the world to

find this one action that you need to do in your life, because Destiny has told you that. No, I

think that's bs I think it changes. It depends on how you're feeling. It depends on what's happening at that

time. I, I don't think you've got a single purpose. I think your purpose is to be true to yourself

at any given time. There you go. There's your purpose on the fly. Your purpose is to be genuinely

to your true self and show up as that at any given time And

that can change as you get wiser. If you're a wise person, that will change over your life. That will

grow and it will deepen and it'll, and it'll have a bigger impact and effect on you.

That, thank you all those that support this podcast. Thank you for listening. Thank you to anybody that gives a

review. You guys are awesome. These podcasts are really starting to Help people. I think, um,

if it helps you, that's awesome. You know, and thank you to the ones that treat me to a coffee.

It makes a big difference. It enables me to get more podcasts Out there for the simple fact I can

get it edited by somebody else because that's not my passion editing. It really isn't. I don't

like doing it and it takes hours and it's just a nightmare for me. So you could really you ease

the burden on my life. If you can help me to get someone else to edit my podcast, if you

go to thankyousteven.com Take care. You're awesome and I love you.