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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Series 2, Ep10: Over-identifying with your environment

 

EPISODE NOTES

I coach autistic / AuDHD folks

on how to BE more of yourself AND make life work;

how to go from burnout cycles and survival

to creating an outrageous aligned life, as unique as you are.

Not just with life hacks and some 'reasonable' adjustments;

I'm all about the DEEP identity self-world revolutions that are involved in realising unreasonable goals and futures.

 

And here's what I know from this work:

Your level of self-belief

that YOU can 

• create the creative / rebellious / outstanding / impactful / world-changing / unique visions, projects, services that you dream of

• BE YOURSELF and make life work at the same time

• experience your FULL self as lovable, seen, enough...

 

that belief level

is directly correlated to what your environment (your social, economic, physical context)

reflects about WHO you currently are

and how much that aligns with inner self.

How much the IDENTITY you crafted in response to that environment, actually supports you BEING who you are.

So if that IDENTITY is out of date, misaligned, inaccurate

AND you want to go against the grain of your environment

or your past

of what people expect of you

to MAKE BIG DREAMS happen,

your belief level that it is okay and possible for you

will be low.

 

Increasing that belief level, 

requires that you carve out space (head space, physical space, attention, time, relational space) for the parts of self, the version of you

that YOU haven't yet experienced.

The new IDENTITY,

that your current environment can't possibly reflect.

 

In this week's Unmasking Unschool Podcast episode, I share about the dual process of 

transforming identity (SOLA system)

and 

transforming reality (POWA System)

 

becoming someone who can do both - on purpose

and how much this is aided by an environment that is geared towards where you are going

and reflects the IDENTITY of the future self that got you there.

 

Over-identifying with What Is,

only re-creates what has been.

You and I, sibling, contain futures that this world needs.

Let's make them real...

 

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

[00:00:00] Hey, sibling, you are listening to the unmasking unschooled podcast. This is for visionaries, creatives, and change makers who happen to be autistic, who are done with pathology paradigms, the masks and misinterpretations of the past and the burnout cycles that come from trying to fit in with what doesn't work.

[00:00:31] You are here to create new aligned life structures, to innovate industries, to design liberatory solutions and create new culture by becoming yourself. My name is Louisa Shaeri. I'm an artist, coach and founder of SOLA Systems. This is all about you getting unstuck, reinventing and elevating your sense of self, having the social context and frameworks to make a life that makes sense for how you make sense, so you can finally experience who you're here to be in your fullness.

[00:01:02] Let's deep dive into it.

[00:01:10] Hey sibling, my partner's away. My kids are asleep. It's raining outside and it's dark, and I wanted to record this episode because it feels current. And so maybe it's current for you. This is all about the danger of over identifying with your environment, with the material conditions of your life, with the ways in which your life is reflecting an idea of who you are.

[00:01:44] To talk about this, I'm going to use a super literal metaphor from a period of my life in which I felt stuck. All of my energy was going to maintaining a life, just didn't reflect me. It didn't reflect what I wanted, what I needed, and wasn't conducive to a satisfying, fulfilling, nurturing, expansive, expressed experience of who I was.

[00:02:14] It sort of felt like a waiting zone, you know, like how planes circle sometimes until there's a runway in which they can land. It was like that, like looping, repeating, same day, in and out, groundhog stuck, just waiting for something outside of me. That meant that I would then be able to finally start living my life.

[00:02:39] And so here I was being a receptionist. I applied to a temporary workers agency, and so I was doing all these temp jobs, receptionist or office admin, something, and being sent for a week here, a week there in different offices, mostly in central London, and there was one particular office that I was meant to be for two weeks, and I ended up being there for two years.

[00:03:10] Two years of groundhog day, two years of wasting my energy, my strengths, my dreams, time avoiding the hard decisions, the bold choices that would create actual change. And instead just waiting for the change to happen to me, which of course it did, but it wasn't the change that I wanted. After two years, the company shut down and I was without a job and I had to get my shit together.

[00:03:41] In a new direction, the universe pushed me because I was waiting. So me, receptionist, nylon tights, office worker clothes that were really uncomfortable. I was answering the occasional phone call. I was doing photocopying, filing, stuff that was super easy, low demand. And yet the entire maintenance of this role was costing me, right?

[00:04:12] I was commuting into central London, working nine to five, doing a job in which I didn't feel reflected, I didn't believe in, I didn't feel any sense of meaning, and I didn't enjoy, but my entire environment and who I was being was affirming that this is who I was, this is what I was. I was a receptionist.

[00:04:37] Now in your life, yeah, obviously there's more to you than a job title, but if you think about it, there are ways that you show up to the relationships, to your day to day, how you move about your home, your neighborhood, the places that you go, the work that you do maybe. The social categories of identity that are ascribed to your body and your characteristics, all of the meanings and assumptions and projections and messaging and values that are associated with those categories, all of that.

[00:05:13] All of your environment contains these assumed roles, these assumed versions of who you are. Even the way that buildings are designed, the ways that towns are planned, home interiors, all of these are containing decisions that someone else made, assumptions about how you move, your perceive, how your body works, what you do, and who you are.

[00:05:40] What you are, how much that environment is looked after, the way it's shaped, all of it is feedback, right? And then the relationships and who we've been being and the ways in which people get accustomed to that. And so relate to us as the person that we've always been being. And so this feedback is like a looping, repetitive.

[00:06:05] Messaging that becomes the most reliable reality, the most consistent reality, and then you adapt to it and it becomes the unconscious self that you start being accustomed to being. There's just the way it is and there's just who you are when you are being in the way it is. And even if it's good and you're winning, you're rewarded, it's working, but it's a version of you.

[00:06:37] And it's not all of you, or it's not working at all, right? And you know that you're not happy. Chances are that there are aspects of this that no longer feel like a choice. And that it's hard to see beyond it. And there's aspects of self then that just feel like who you are. This is the, Reality and the self that then becomes your identity.

[00:07:03] So me as a receptionist was stuck. I identified with that environment to a degree that I couldn't see options outside of it. I was dreaming about things, but I wasn't acting on them and I kind of got used to it. It was like I got used to dreaming. I got used to waiting and it just felt like that was my lot.

[00:07:26] That's kind of who I am right now. And that's kind of what my life is like. And so when you're thinking about what you are wanting to make happen, and if you're really thinking about, fuck, I have one life, one life, what do I want to do with it, if I could really choose and I could choose anything, if there were no negative consequences, if I knew I could just go about making that happen and I wouldn't fail.

[00:07:56] If I knew that, what is it that I would do? If you're thinking about that, I want to ask you, why aren't you living that now? The chances are that a lot of the reasons that come up are because you've over identified with some aspect of your reality as it is right now. Your material current conditions.

[00:08:16] What all of that is saying about who you are, chances are you've over identified with your conditions and mistaken it for yourself. And what I want to talk about today is that's not who you are. The second that you think you know, the second that you've decided or got used to or adapted to a certain way that things are and a certain version of you.

[00:08:43] It's a bit like walking down the path of life and then stopping and plonking down, sitting yourself and being like, cool, that'll do. You don't actually know what's around the corner, what's possible, what would happen if you took a different path, what paths are available. You just know this version of you.

[00:09:04] You aren't a consistent fixed self. You aren't separate from your environment. But how do you become someone who can influence, who can shape it? And the first step in this is becoming aware of all of the ways in which you've unconsciously agreed with, identified with, adapted to. Said yes to, accepted, allowed, what is, as your current reality, and as your current self.

[00:09:33] So getting unstuck, creating change on purpose, is becoming aware of all of the things that you've unconsciously agreed with. Right now I'm in my very own process of looking at all the things I've agreed with and looking at the self that I've become, and I'm starting to feel my edges in the sense that the shell, the home, the version of my life I've identified with the persona, the, the identity that I've become is feeling a little bit tight.

[00:10:07] It's no longer fitting, and I'm having that staring. Like urge for something else, something new and that something new isn't starting from scratch. It's, it's taking everything I'm doing to another level. And where I'm starting with that is becoming aware of the version of self that I've identified with, that I've become accustomed to.

[00:10:40] That is. a reflection of all of the choices that I'm now living. And so where I'm starting is recognizing that that self isn't all of who I am. And so who is it that has created the next level that I'm looking for? Who is that version of me? The version of you that has made the thing that you want Who is that?

[00:11:12] There are two systems of change inside of the Unmasking Unschool. One of them is the solar system, which is all about identity transformation. And the other is the power system, P O W A, Pyramids of Wise Action, becoming aware of the working assumptions that you are living out, becoming aware of all of the ways in which your habitual thinking, the habitual actions, the past conditions of your life, All of the ways that you habitually react to life so that you can recognize all of the places in which you actually have more choice so that you can start to use that choice to make new decisions, to take new actions and to start showing up in a new way, being, becoming the version of you that has already created the results that you want.

[00:12:05] So the power system is really about reality transformation, and the solar system is about identity transformation. And these sort of fit inside of each other in a holarchic way. There's a third system that I'm also working on, that I'm going to be sharing in a few months time and unveiling, and that's much more about Turning up the volume on everything that works in terms of how you are self expressed.

[00:12:32] And that is part of also the up level that I'm in. There is something about how I want to show up that is another level to what I'm doing now. And it's uncomfortable. And I've never done it before, but in recognizing all of the arenas in which I have choice, then the repeated actions that I'm currently living allows me to start to make different choices.

[00:13:06] The current version of you. The self that you've identified with and the problems that that self is facing will contain a bunch of beliefs, contain the reality that you've adapted to, contain the limitations that you've just accepted. And so it's not so much the problem that you're facing that needs solving so much as the lens, the way that you are looking at it, the perspectives that you have on it being From your current self, rather than the self that solved it, the future self that you're becoming the self that has created what you're wanting to create has a different lens is looking at your problem from the perspective of having solved it from the solution.

[00:13:56] That invites a different awareness of choice and invites new thinking and making different decisions so that you can start to experience, meet, discover, find out parts of yourself that you haven't yet been. And so what you might be thinking is an external problem is often first an internal one because of how you are interpreting the problem from the self that is perceiving it as a problem, rather than the source of your growth.

[00:14:31] If you think about a time in your past when you did something that you didn't know that you were capable of until you'd done it. Or something that you overcame, or a really difficult time that you got through. It's in those times that the self that you are now was made. Right, they required you to evolve your sense of self.

[00:14:52] They gifted you with a different type of clarity and wisdom for what life is like. What reality is. And therefore, you've got to be more of who you are as a material expression. So these systems are about facing the now. Saying yes to the lessons because the lessons of now indicate the type of growth and the self that you're being invited to meet you hate your job.

[00:15:23] Good. Welcome it. What is that revealing about a decision that you need to make? Your friendships are exhausting. What is that showing you about how you are showing up to those friendships? Your dreams are gathering dust because you gave up on the first fail. Hmm. But what is that first fail showing you about your particular path to making it happen?

[00:15:50] You want more financial resources. What is your relationship to money right now? You've been dealing with people mistreating you seems to be happening over and over, right? What is it that needs acknowledgement or processing or witnessing a new boundary, a new skill, or a new level of discernment? So that you can have a different experience.

[00:16:16] I want to give you something tangible to take away from this episode. So becoming aware of all of the choices that we've stopped seeing is a first step. The second step I want to give you is to carve out space. So this could be physical space. It could be that in your home, you are Creating a space that is dedicated to what's next, right?

[00:16:43] And you fill that up with things that are resonant with or speaking to where you're going, what you want. It could be that it's headspace, right? Or time, timing your calendar. It could be that you are making space in a notebook or a voice notes app where you are Allowing the parts of you that are yet to be expressed, to be felt, to be experienced.

[00:17:12] Get your attention and your energy and your belief that yeah, I'm taking this seriously. Carve out a space where that is becoming more real. Another way that you can do this is relational space. This is having a coach. When I was starting solar systems, my entire environment was feeding back to me that who I was, was a parent of young children homeschooling while changing nappies.

[00:17:41] Uh, during a pandemic. So none of it was pointing to the self that I wanted to create an experience and the life that I was building. And I had to carve that time out, right? Where I could find it half an hour here, 20 minutes there, right? When my kids was, had gone to sleep or when my partner took them out for an hour or so.

[00:18:04] And. That time I was dedicating to what I was building next and, and then I also started working with a coach which provided relational space within which that future self, the self that I was becoming, the things that I was wanting to make happen could be believed, could experience being witnessed, reflected back.

[00:18:26] Could have energy and attention of two people on it, and that changed everything for me. So carving out space for who you're becoming next, the identity that you don't yet know, right? The self that has done things that current self doesn't yet know how to do, has created, has overcome, has shifted things, has made decisions.

[00:18:52] Right? Who is that? That self is a different identity. That self is identified with the circumstances that you created on purpose. That self is an identity that has a different filter for what is possible, that is focused on something else other than what your current life is, right? That has a different yes, no, that is filtering out different things.

[00:19:20] And that has different rules for what that version of you is conforming to. So that identity, and what and who you think you are, is where that transformation starts to take place. There is so much more to you than the roles that you've been being, and who you represent to the people in your life. The Characteristics, the power dynamics, the societal ideologies, the past assumptions that people have had about you, right?

[00:19:52] The working models that you have learned to adapt to for what's real and who you are and what's consistent with your identity. That's not all of who you are. That is a flattened, stereotyped, off the shelf set of assumptions. It's not all of who you are. And so, yeah, where is it that you've identified with your environment with the feedback that you get from other people?

[00:20:20] Where is it that you've kind of collected up these impressions of how people treat you into this idea of who you are and what's possible for you? And how do you feel about that idea? Does it feel good? Is it really how you want to feel about yourself? Does it express you fully? No. So we have to examine this.

[00:20:43] We have to become conscious of it and we have to carve out a space for something else to start to take root that is not dictated by a past, by what people will think, by the ways that you may have been judging yourself for what you need, or the ways that you don't yet believe. That things that you want are possible for you, the ways in which you might be scared of losing what felt hard to make happen or what is a source of legitimacy or worth or material, sustenance and craft space for something else.

[00:21:21] How can you carve out a space in your environment so that. Somewhere in your life, the environment is reflecting who you are becoming, not because your current self isn't enough, but because your current self is already enough. So, what do you want? There are sides to you that you don't get to experience when you've been trying to fit in with what is.

[00:21:47] With what has been with who people think you are, those bold ideas, those insights, the visionary creative projects in you, the, the world changing services, the ways of living, expressing the lifestyles in you. Don't get to live out. So if you sense that, if you sense that there are things in you, more to you, more to life, and you're needing a ready made environment for growing that, making that the reality that you're living and the self that you're becoming.

[00:22:22] I want to invite you to consider unmasking unschool. Doors are opening this September. I'm inviting in the next cohort. So get ready. Unmasking unschool is. Weekly group coaching with me. It's the tools, these systems for how to transform your experience of your life, your reality yourself. And it's the social context of other folks who are each in their own unique journeys.

[00:22:52] And yet those journeys provide you with tons of examples and context and evidence. For your own journey and your own belief to know that, okay, this is possible for me to, this is what it looks like. And this is what it feels like when I have a space where that is the focus where what I'm dreaming up and wanting to create and the unique path that I'm going to carve to get there is reflected, is seen, is held, is believed.

[00:23:22] And none of the explaining, none of the translating, none of the trying to be something I'm not. Is in your way. So this is coming. This will be available to you in a matter of weeks. If you think this might be something that could be of interest to you, make sure you're on my mailing list. Go to SOLA systems, S O L a systems dot X, Y, Z.

[00:23:46] And get on my mailing list and you'll be the first to know when doors open, and you'll be the first to get all of the information about what's inside, how you can join and what the experience has been like for folks who have been through it. So I can't wait for the new cohort that will be joining and for what you're going to create in your life when you do.

[00:24:07] All right, sibling, become aware of all of the things that you've normalized as just the way things are and just who you are and see if you can get underneath that. Into sensing what could be.

 

 

 

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