The Courage to Be YOU Amidst External Pressure: A Personal Journey

In this deeply personal monologue, Mindi discusses the challenges of being authentic and true to yourself, even when it goes against the grain of societal and familial expectations.

Drawing from her own personal experiences and struggles as an ambitious, independent wildly creative and unconventional woman who was raised in a deeply traditional and conservative environment, Mindi reflects on her journey to allow herself to be the fullest expression of who she is, despite judgment, criticism, disappointment and abandonment of friends and family.

She encourages you to tap into your own internal guidance system, trust your intuition, and have the courage to live a life that is true to yourself - even if it means potentially losing relationships and facing criticism. 

00:01 Introduction and the Struggle with Perfectionism
01:08 Childhood Experiences and Parental Expectations
06:56 The Journey of Self-Discovery and Embracing Individuality
14:13 The Challenges of Being a Single Parent
16:47 Breaking Societal Norms and Pursuing Personal Goals
19:25 The Importance of Authenticity and Self-Acceptance
21:23 Overcoming Criticism and Embracing Unconventional Paths
24:22 The Power of Intuition and Spiritual Guidance
41:55 Conclusion: Embracing Your Unique Journey

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Transcript

Mindi Lyons: 0:01

Today there's something on my heart that I want to share and you may be hearing my cat pumpkin in the background because she is being a very needy needskins this morning. In any case the topic that I want to talk about today has a lot to do with people putting their projections on you. And how that impacts your life. I'm gonna let myself ramble on this and not even worry about cutting parts out because one of the things that has kept me from even recording these podcasts is my own perfectionism tendencies and wanting everything to sound exactly the way it should and have all my thoughts formulated together in a way that is cohesive and makes sense and translates my message in the way that I desire for it to translate to. But I just want to flow on this. I don't want to be overthinking it. So yeah, it's going to be imperfect, but that's okay because that's the whole name of the game right now is messy action, imperfect action. And being an example of how Just doing the thing that you're inspired to do and not letting your overthinking patterns to keep you from doing that thing. That's what I'm about right now. And that's what I'm wanting to example to anybody who is listening here. So what brought this topic to my mind was getting a text yesterday from my mom. And this is not to be negative about my mom. It's just something that has been a theme in my life with my parents, my upbringing, and also with, you know, know that anybody has these types of. Things. So the text message was a article about a school that I used to go to, and it was talking about how they had some sort of an agricultural program. And she was saying that she wished that the school had that type of a program when I was in school. And I knew that the underlying reason why she wanted that was because they really, my parents really value wanting to have you know, like your own food, to be off the grid. I had a very, very unique upbringing. I was I was raised extremely conservatively, like on the extreme. We didn't even have You know, like electricity, sometimes didn't have working plumbing for a long time. We lived way out in the mountains. Really nobody around us. Anyways, that's not the point that I'm wanting to get into right now. The point being was that she was saying, I wish that you could have done this. You know, I wish that this was available to you so that you could have learned how to have gardening skills. And I just responded saying kind of like in a, I don't know, in a, in a lighthearted way that that was not something that I was ever, you know, inspired to do. And she kind of responded saying something along the lines of maybe you missed your calling. And she was saying it in a joking way, but it was just one of those things where there was that underlying, it just brought up this topic in me. That I wanted to talk about of I wish that you were something that you're not and that was a theme that showed up regularly throughout my childhood was that I was my parents wanted me to be different than the way that I felt that I was or that I Innately just knew that I was So, for example I demonstrated musical talent very, very early on in my childhood. And for some reason, I'm not even sure why at this point, but my dad was someone who really wanted to have music in his family, but he was also raised very conservatively. And so there were very strict rules about music in our household. I was very into when I was growing up. I was very, very into artists like Mariah Carey Michael Bolton who's the Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, like those were the people that I used to, I taught myself how to sing by listening to their albums, but I had to keep my albums hidden because when my dad had found out that I was listening to that music. He took all of my music and he told me that he buried my music in the backyard and that he would let me know where it was when I turned 18. So, we weren't allowed to listen to conservative music. That was, I mean not conservative to rock music. That was, you know, banned. That was not okay. My mom didn't have the strictness around it that my dad did. But, in any case, my dad for, I think it was my 8th grade graduation present, he had bought a bunch of music equipment. No, we were not by any means, well, we were not even a middle class family. I mean, I was raised very, very poor. And so music equipment, you know, that was a big deal. So he had bought. All this music equipment, a synthesizer, a mixing board, speakers, basically everything that I would need to be able to record music. And the rule was that I could have that equipment as long as I did not play drums in any of my music. That's a whole side tangent. I'm not even going to get into it. So many people are like, why could you not have drums in your music? But it was a conservative thing and it was just part of how I was brought up. So, I remember back then, even back then, saying, well, I don't want this gift then if there are those types of conditions on it. Anyways, I, I ended up having the, the equipment, recording some music. And later on in my life, the first time I became a single parent, I was 21 and my youngest daughter was two years old at the time. And back then is when I embarked on my first journey with music. So I felt inspired to share my story of what I was going through at the time and also my singing. So I started doing concerts all around the country every, I don't know, a couple months or so traveled all over the place and did concerts where I would share my story and I would share music. I sang Christian music at the time. And I remember the first concert that I did was in Colorado and it was just a surreal experience that people would actually come to listen to me and hear what I had to say. And the, the things that they would tell me at the end of the concerts were just so validating and you know, really showing me that I had a gift, which I knew I had a gift, but it was like the first time other than singing for church where people were like, we really want to hear. You sing and your heart and you're witty and you're funny and it's the way you express yourself So this is how this is one of the first times that I really understood that I had a gift for not only singing but also for speaking and for being able to communicate the things in my life that I had been through in a way that other people could see themselves woven in my story and Be able to create those moments of connection and help them know that they weren't alone in whatever they were going through. So that was one of the times where, you know, I started getting into this, into the music space. And I remember just being petrified at the thought of my dad being at one of my concerts because some of the music that I would sing did have drums in the background. I did not have a band, so I used accompaniment tracks is what we called them. So they were just, you know, pre recorded soundtracks that I would sing to, and there were drums in some of them, even though some of them were very, very conservative. And I did stay on a very conservative side. There were some drums in them. And I don't remember how many concerts it had been, but I did not even do a local concert in my local town for a long time because I didn't want there to be any chance of people who were in my life, you know in a close proximity way in my hometown to come to my concert. I didn't even want that. So. I did end up at some point doing a concert in my hometown and I remember seeing my dad walk in and him sitting down and I was so scared because I knew what was going to happen with my music. And I saw his expression, you know, sitting there and his, the disappointment on his face, the anger. At least this is how I translated it. Maybe that wasn't how he was feeling, but that is how I translated. I'm very empathetic. And so I noticed your, your body language. I noticed your expressions. I noticed what you say and what you don't say. I noticed all of it. I pick up on the energy and plus, you know, just my whole life experience. I knew how he felt about these things. So it was just utter disappointment. It was I just knew by, you know, the way that he was like, had his hands crossed over his chest that he was just like very closed off and was not proud of me at all. So that, that kind of thing really stuck with me through my upbringing. And there were numerous times where things like this happened that sent me the message that you are making the wrong decision. The choices that you are making are not the choices that we would have for you. We're disappointed in you. So another thing that showed up when I was a kid was that I was It turned out that I was very naturally gifted at ice skating and I freaking loved ice skating. There was something about gliding across the ice that just made me feel wild and free and like I was on top of the world. And so for whatever reason, I don't even remember why, but my mom had signed me up for Ice skating lessons and the teachers noticed that I was naturally gifted and because I had been skating several times and I would teach myself different things that I would see people doing, I used to watch, you know, the Olympic skating videos and so I taught myself how to skate backwards and I taught myself how to do, you know, certain techniques and how to do little spins and things like that. And so when I started doing ice skating lessons, I Was able to advance through different levels of classes in one day because I had I had taught myself the skills from You know several of those different levels and I so badly wanted to be an Olympic ice skater That was what I was gonna do with my life I told my mom I really want to be an Olympic ice skater and I was very gifted at it And I know my teachers would even say that I could have gone really far with that because I just had a natural gift for it but The kibosh was put on that because of the, the skating costumes, the skating costumes were very immodest and, and we didn't, my parents didn't believe in you know, wearing that type of clothing or wearing anything that, you know, drew attention to your body or really drew attention to yourself. So my dream of being an Olympic ice skater was. you know, not going to happen because I did not have the support to be able to take ongoing lessons and things like that. And again, this is not because I'm trying to say a bunch of negative things about my parents. You know, they, they had their own journey. That was their own path in life. They were doing the best that they could with the information that they had and how they were brought up and, and, you know, how. Who they were at the time and all of that. So my point is just that all throughout my childhood with the people, you know, the people in your life who you have learned to listen to and to be sort of like the authority on what is okay and what is not okay, even when it doesn't feel Like, you can tell, at least I could, from my early age when something was meant for me, or whether it wasn't, or whether it resonated with me, or it didn't. And there were certain things that I was taught that just weren't okay or right but I just felt within myself that I was like, that doesn't feel right for me though. I don't subscribe to that. That belief or that theory or whatever it is And I remember even things that were mm hmm. I don't know how to say this But I remember when I would have dolls and my mom would would say things like oh You're gonna be such a good mother someday cuz she would watch how I'd play with my dolls and I don't know what the deal was or why I had such a I don't know if it was a jaded view, but I did not want to be a mother. When I was growing up, I remember thinking that I did not want to have children and Of course, fast forward now, I have three children and I love them dearly and I'm very happy that I have a mother. But my mom was very much the old school and I'm just going to call this old school. You can have your own opinions about it, but you know, my mom was all about that traditional, you know, the man works, brings home the living. The woman is the one that's supposed to stay home, cook, clean, take care of the kids. You know, that very, very traditional. Woman and man role, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's the way that you navigate, you know, your world. That's totally fine. But I was someone who has always been extremely driven. I'm ambitious. I was, ever since I was young, I had big goals, big visions. I had. When I say vision, sometimes people can get a little bit weird about that, but I would have in my mind's eye, I could see, I felt like God gave me these visions of where my life was going to go and I was going to be singing on stages. I was going to be speaking on stages and in front of big crowds and I was going to. you know, have this, this life that was me being very much in front of the public eye and being someone who is very impactful to large amounts of people through my singing and my speaking. That's something that I just had in my core, the core of my being from when I was very little. I did not see myself as being that traditional, you know, mom staying at home doing all the cooking and cleaning and like being that person who doesn't do anything like your job is that you need to be the mom to your kids and the wife to your husband and all of that. So that was something that was not you know, my, my mom wanted me to be that. type of role and she just did not relate to me being this very ambitious driven type. So in fact, when I became a single parent the first time my parents really really wanted me to be able to be home with my daughter. And so at that time, like I said, I was 21 years old. I had a two year old daughter and I did at that time, My first husband was put in prison and so I moved back in with my parents so that I had someone to help take care of my daughter while I went off to work. So later on in life, I know I'm like, hopefully you guys are following this because I know I'm all over the board with this, but later on in life, like now, you know, fast forward to the present time or even when I became a single parent for the second time. Yes, I've been married twice and both, both instances ended up in a devastatingly awful situation, but I'm not going to get into that right now. The fact is I did become a, a solo parent again in 2016 and I had three kids then. So I had my oldest and then at the time, I think my youngest two were around five and six years old. So at the time my parents wanted me to move back in with them. I am big about being independent and, you know, making my own way and I, I did not want to do that. I didn't do that. And I remember my dad being very, very against me going to work and, and creating a living for my family, you know, I should be home. I should have a husband. I should have someone that's supporting me so that I can be home with the kids. And there was just very, very heavy judgment around that. And I did not understand that at all. It's like, I'm supposed to be supporting my family. How can, how can someone look negatively at me for doing the, what I perceive to be the responsible thing, which is providing a living for my family. I didn't have a husband doing that for me. So, and even if I did, that's the thing, my personality. I'm not someone that just wants to sit home and just be the housewife. I'm someone that I just knew that I had an impact that I was here to make. And. That I did not subscribe to the belief that I just needed to be home cooking and cleaning and taking care of the kids. I wanted to make my own way and even if I did marry someone who, you know, was wealthy or could provide for us, I wasn't, I'm not looking for a sugar daddy. I was not someone that was, you know, wanting to just live off of someone else being able to support me. I wanted to be able to create my own living. There was something about being able to create my When I say my own income, it's not to say that all of my money is my money and that I'm not going to share it. It's not that it's just, I want it to be. The person who generated the income, I guess you could say that. So I didn't want to be fully financially dependent on someone else. I liked the feeling of being able to generate money. And to be able to put my creative ideas to work. To be able to, you know, use my giftings in ways that I was feeling called or inspired to do. So my point is that there was a lot of shame around being me. And I was also someone who was very, I loved sparkly things. I remember always looking at earrings and thinking that they were so beautiful. And I was taught that we couldn't wear jewelry because you're attracting You know, attention to yourself and I loved wearing makeup. It's like I saw makeup as a form of art It's like I got to play with all these different fun looks But I could only do that at home and not when my dad was around so basically I got this message that everything that was unique to me that I felt was unique to me as a person that I was I was creative. I was, I loved makeup. I loved sparkles. I loved fancy things. I loved working. I loved lifting weights. That was another one. I loved working out. I loved muscle and I wanted to be, you know, very, very fit and maybe even be a bodybuilder. You know, I, I don't know. I explored those things. I remember when I was 14 years old. You either 13 or 14. I did some babysitting work in exchange for a weight bench because I wanted to, I was super into fitness and I don't even know why that was not something that was ingrained in me. My parents weren't into fitness and they certainly weren't supportive of the type of fitness that I wanted to do. Which was what they would consider to be more on the I guess vein spectrum because I wanted muscle and you know, it's not natural fitness of just running or walking or doing, you know, Being out in nature or gardening or like getting a fit body, doing things that are natural. It was like an unnatural way of getting fit. So even the way, like the type of workouts that I liked were not okay. The type of careers that I wanted were not okay. The type of music I wanted to sing or that I listened to were not okay. The type of parenting style that I felt when I did have kids was what I wanted for my family. It was not Was not okay. It was like literally I could not find a Part of myself that was acceptable according to the standard that I was brought up with. And I remember feeling so sad about that. Desperately wanting to feel accepted and to feel I knew that my parents loved me, but I wanted to have them be proud of me. I think that that's most kids desire. Is for their parents to feel proud of them. And there were times when they would say that they were proud of me, but it was usually if there was something happening where I was conforming to you know, what they thought I should do or, you know, how things should go for me. And that didn't feel good to me because that wasn't feeling like I was actually living the life that I genuinely wanted to live. It was more about conforming to what they wanted for me. So I remember when I finally came to the point. where I, it occurred to me that the person that I would need to be in order to have essentially their stamp of approval, I didn't even agree with that. I didn't even want that. So it was. It's essentially a fruitless endeavor to even try to be someone who was fully embraced, fully celebrated, you know, to, for them to be proud of me because in order to be that person, I wouldn't even be me. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be doing the things that felt good or right for me. I wouldn't even, I literally would not be me. I would literally have to be not me in order for them to. Fully embrace me for all that I was, I could not be all that I was and have them feel like I was on track or that I was a good person or that I would, I don't know how to explain it. I'm sure people out here right now listening to this are like, I completely understand what you're saying because I've been there, I understand what that's like, or they can at least you know, understand what I'm, what I'm describing, but it was very, it was a very heartbreaking. Moment of clarity. And yet it was also one of those moments of clarity that it was like from a logical perspective, it helped me release a lot of my my. That, that really strong pull at my heart to want to have their approval and acceptance because once I realized that I couldn't even be me in order to have their approval and acceptance, like what kind of a life is that? I don't even want that. So it was like this defining moment that was like, I will never have it and that's okay because in order for me to have it, I would never even want to be that person. So that did create some very interesting dynamics. You know, unfortunately, I do not have a close relationship with almost anybody in my family. And I'm not going to go into all of that, but I, I guess I just really, this was all my heart to share because. Throughout your life, you know, it's not just my parents that that's happened, but there's going to be people around you and especially society, you know, you're going to be seeing posts on social media, you're going to have friends and coworkers and you know, relationships, people who are going to have an opinion about what you're doing and I have always, always felt that my life was intentionally meant to be non traditional because I was put here to be Essentially, a bit of a trailblazer to be able to show the people who are like me, who are the black sheep, who are the people that are the weird ones, the ones that don't really fit in, that don't feel almost like, almost like having a rebel attitude where you're, you just know that you're not meant to conform. You're not meant to be one of the people that is walking the same direction as everybody else, that there's something different for you. Even though that's very uncomfortable because you tend to be the person who is, you know, kind of looked at with a critical eye, especially. When I was a solo parent, oh my gosh, you would think that people would be a lot more understanding and compassionate. And I had never experienced so much hate, so much criticism, so much judgmentalness from people as when I've been a single parent. It's almost like they look at you with much more you know, it's like. They want to see if you're going to take a misstep because it's like, Oh, ha, ha. Look at her. You know, she's, that's because she's a single parent and look at how she's messing up her kids because it's like, if her kids make a mistake, a hundred percent of that accountability is on me because I'm their parent. So when I have made some wildly ridiculous decisions from, a outsider's perspective one of them being completely relocating my family from Texas to California back in 2017, that Most people thought was a stupid decision. Why would I be going to California? It's one of the most expensive places to live. I was uprooting my kids. You know, there were just all of these different things to factor in. At the time my car had died, so I didn't even have my own working car and I didn't have a job lined up. I didn't have you know, there were So many unknowns, but I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew. I just knew that I was being called to go there, even though I did not understand why. But I have developed a very strong relationship spiritually and I don't want to get into a lot of talk about spirituality because I know there's a lot of people who have had very bad experiences in the church or with people in the church. And I'm not sitting here trying to say that, you know, you need to adopt my belief system or anything like that. That's not even what this is about. And my views, on that note on spirituality and religion and church and all those different things have dramatically shifted over the years as I have really the second time being single. And when I moved to California, I really got a chance to re evaluate. What do I believe? What do I not believe? What is just tradition and what is, what are the things that I actually believe, believe are true at my core to my own Experience spiritually. I really developed a very strong spirituality through all of the things that I've navigated in life. And I really learned to tap into my spiritual guidance, my internal guidance, my gut instinct, my intuition that became. the guiding force in my life for making all of my decisions. And at the time I, I knew like, I knew that I was meant to go there to California, even though I didn't understand why. And I picked my family up and I left and I completely rebuilt our lives in California. And this podcast isn't about that specific thing. But my point was that I made a very ludicrously wild From the outside perspective irresponsible decision and so there was a lot of criticism about that I had criticism about literally everything so I used to be someone who is an extreme people pleaser I couldn't stand the thought of people Disagreeing with my decisions or feeling like I was you know walking the wrong path or That I would somehow disappoint someone or that people would be talking behind my back and all of the experiences that I've been through I have had to develop a Strong basically like a, a thick skin and a, a, a strong spine for things like this. And I'm very grateful for that aspect of the personal development from the things that I've been through because I went from being someone who is very insecure and a very big people pleaser to being someone who is very confident and who is not sort of like Determining my own value or my own credibility or my own self worth from the eyes of other people and what they think of me because I really learned that what people think of me or how they view the decisions that I make are really just from the lens that they are choosing to view life through. And that has nothing to do with me. It really has. Nothing to do with me unless I make it have something to do with me. So, there are people who, you know, have thought that I was you know, because I didn't pursue the college route. I, the highest level of education I had was high school and a lot of people would look down on me for that because I wasn't one of those people that was well educated. And, for example, my older sister is very well educated. So, there was automatically this imbalance in, you know, my older sister was considered, quote, more successful. Successful than I was because I only got as far as high school. And in reality, I've learned that education, and this is again not the topic for this podcast, but I have a very unpopular belief about education, and I think that it's becoming a more and more widely accepted view, but. Education to me is not a determining factor for your value, your authentic value as a human being. There are so many people in this world who have become from the world's standards. Many people would consider, you know, financial success, career success to be a pretty significant form of success. And there are so many people who have. Become massively successful in business and in finances who never completed high school or who didn't complete college. I mean, I could go on and on about this topic. I'm not bashing people who choose to go that route, but I have found that society puts a lot of pressure. Not so much now. I really think that, that the world is taking a turn on this, but it used to be that you weren't really somebody unless you had a degree. It used to be that you couldn't even make the type of income. That a person with a degree could make. I have proven that completely wrong. I, even in my career I developed a very strong income, even with just a high school education in the corporate realm. And I made a lot more money than many of my friends who had degrees. And so I completely. And then I also proved the theory wrong that you can't be even more successful as an entrepreneur. You know, here I am an entrepreneur, the sole support, I have never gotten a penny in custody in sorry, not custody and child support. And I made massively amount massively more money as an entrepreneur, as I did. In my corporate career, even though I did do very well in my corporate career, despite only having a high school education, but a lot of people have looked at me as, Oh, she's just someone who has a high school education. They're not looking at. You know, the career success, the financial success and things like that. And there are people who are massively unhappy. You know, they might have degrees or multiple degrees, and they may even be making what society would consider to be very, very good money. And yet they're extremely unhappy. They're very unfulfilled. They're. Stressed out. They have no life balance. And you know, a lot of times that's from societal pressures that you can't really do well in life unless you have a degree or because of family pressures of parents saying, you know, I was a doctor. You should be a doctor. I was a lawyer. You should be a lawyer or I had this degree. You should get a degree or, you know, putting all of this external pressure On someone even if that isn't authentically what they feel true for themselves I was never the only degree that I was interested in growing up was to get a degree in physical fitness because I for so many years growing up wanted to be a personal trainer And so that would be the only direction I would want to go or in business But business doesn't teach you how to be an entrepreneur. And I always wanted to learn how to be a successful entrepreneur. I never wanted to be someone that built someone else's dream. I always, always, always wanted to be someone that was building the ladder that other people were climbing. I wanted to be the person that was doing my thing and setting my own schedule. And it was unconventional. And even when I was growing up, it was not as popular of a. of a thing to, you know, be building your own thing versus working for someone else, because it's like, you're not getting a pension. You're not getting benefits. You're not getting the steady paycheck, you know, what if, what if, what if, what if it doesn't work out? What if, what if, what if? And I have, man, I have lived through so many what if circumstances, and I have absolutely been flat on my face with life circumstances numerous times, but I have my voice is cracking. I have learned. So much for my experience. And I have been someone who other people can look at how I've navigated my life and that it isn't traditional. And I feel like the way that I have lived my life and now that I'm sharing more about it publicly, more and more people are going to be able to be like, this resonates with me so much. Thank you that you are being a voice that is sharing things that I've been feeling and couldn't quite put words to, or I was just wishing that there was someone out there who could understand. You know me and how I think and how I operate. And there are so many people that if we were actually being open about our experiences, it would help create a lot more sense of community and a lot more sense of you know, people being seen and understood in their different ways of thinking. That's one of the reasons why I've decided to share these things on a podcast form, even though some of it isn't necessarily the most comfortable thing to share, because of course there's always gonna be. People with their opinions, you know, disagreeing with what, what it is that I have to say. And that's totally fine. You know, I'm not here to try to convince people to see things from my perspective. The reason why I share is because I think that there is value in sharing your experiences because there are other people out there who can benefit from what you have to say and for what your message is. We all have a different message. We all have our unique experiences and everybody has value in. What you the life that you have lived and ensuring that life because it does create connection with other people in my sharing I want people to be able to Say me too. You know what? I'm sharing something. I want them to be like, oh my gosh me too because it helps them feel more Connected and to for them to know that they aren't alone and whatever it is. They're going through so I Am sharing all of this today to tell you if you are someone who is Feeling like you don't belong feeling like you want So and so to be proud of you, maybe it's your parents, maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your friends who don't understand. I have people in my life who, the people who they hold closest, who they hold most dear, whose opinions are the most impactful, influential in their own lives, those people are disagreeing with decisions that they're making. And it's so hard, it is so hard when the very people that you so badly want their approval and acceptance are the very people who are the ones that are disagreeing with you, trying to talk you into a different way of thinking or to doing something different. And even if they know strongly that they really believe that whatever it is that they're doing or the decision that they're making or the career that they're. Pursuing or whatever it is. And then the people who are their closest to in their lives are the ones that are saying, no, this is wrong. You shouldn't be doing this. And it's like, it's, it's so hard because it's like, they can feel the disconnect where if they continue pursuing this, this route, whatever that is. It's, it's going to create a awkward dynamic in the relationship. And so it goes through this point of almost feeling there's like almost like a grieving a mourning period because you realize that some of your relationships may never be the same again. Some of your relationships may actually disconnect from you completely. You may lose some people in your life by being you. I mean, even saying those words, isn't that sad? It's like you can have a lot of Sadness, as you're becoming more aware of who you are and as you are really owning more of who you are. And when you're learning, like, you know what? I actually don't feel like I'm supposed to live my life this other way that I was taught. And I really genuinely believe, or I really genuinely am giving myself permission to be the person that. Walks this other path, even though I understand that it's going to potentially mean that I am not going to have certain people in my life anymore, that is one of the most hardest and bravest things that you can do is when you know that being you, being fully yourself is going to mean a That you will lose certain people in your life that were important to you. I've had that happen so many times. People in my life that I thought were my ride or die. People in my life that were my best friends. People in my life who were my closest to that knew the innermost parts of myself that I had shared things that I didn't want to share with anybody. And losing those people and then being like, Oh my gosh, you know, how can I feel safe when I poured my heart out to these people where these were my closest friends, the people in my life who meant the most to me, the people in my life who I literally thought would always, always, always be in my life. I never had a doubt that, okay, this person is someday going to betray me or this person is, you know, going to completely vanish out of my life for no reason or for no reason that was ever made known to me. They just disappeared. No communication, no contact. And there was no explanation as to why. You're going to most likely, if you're choosing to live this kind of a path where you're just going to be you, be authentic, to speak your voice, to share your truth. And a lot of people sadly are keeping themselves in the shadows who are conforming to ways of living or beliefs or traditions that they don't even. agree with anymore, that they, that actually feel very icky and feel very like, I'm not even this person. Why am I even acting like this? Or why am I even doing this when this doesn't even feel like me? But so many people are doing that because of what other people will think or because of the consequence, meaning that they might lose those friends or they might lose. They're basically perceiving the loss and they're viewing the loss as being too much, too costly. In comparison with being themselves fully expressed and that to me is a very sad thing because I feel like you should always Give yourself the permission even if it doesn't follow traditional Standards or society norms or whoever's opinion you want to be accepting of you Even if it goes against all of that to me, there is nothing that is more How do I say it? I'm just gonna say words that come to my mind instead of trying to overthink and find the exact word. But, it's painful not being you. It is, it is a very strong feeling of disconnectedness, of not being fully yourself. And even though I have lost friends and my life has made changes that I didn't even expect, To be part of my experience where people have, you know, shifted out of my life or things have just, you know taken a turn that I maybe wasn't expecting by making the decisions that I've made. Even if those things happen, there's some sort of comfort and peace and ease that comes with, you know what, but I was being me. I was making the decisions that I felt were right for me at the time. And. That feels good. Even if whatever the quote unquote consequence of that, there were parts of it that didn't feel good. If I was being truly authentic to me, like for me sharing this podcast right now, if there's someone in my life that hears us and they're like, you know what? If that's the way Mindy thinks, Oh my God, I can't believe that Mindy doesn't believe that everybody should have a college education. I can't believe that Mindy thinks that, you know, women shouldn't have to be. At home, just taking care of the kids and cooking and cleaning, like, how dare she think that she can go and have a successful career and be raising children by herself? How dare she think that she can go against the societal norms of what a woman should be doing, or especially what a single woman should be doing? You know what? If somebody hears that, hears this podcast, and hears my points of view, and so strongly disagrees my Perspective and the way that I have personally chosen to navigate through my own life. I actually am totally fine with that. And that's part of my own self growth is getting to the point where other people's strong opinions of me or how I choose to navigate my life. I'm not going to say that they don't matter at all because I'm human and I think there is just sort of an innate desire for us to want to be accepted and to want people to agree with us or to want to feel like they at least understand us, but I have for sure come to the point where I don't, do not expect people, even though I would love, it would be nice to be understood, but I have learned that You just can't. There are so many different people who have so many differing opinions that you can never ever be so So accepted by people that everybody's gonna be happy with what you do what you say It's just not gonna happen and you wouldn't want it to be happen because how many ways are you gonna have to shape shift and be? a chameleon To conform to what everybody thinks that you should do It's just never gonna happen nor would you want it to happen if you really in your heart of hearts? If you really are honest with yourself about it, you would not even want that to happen because of what it would do to you. So many people have destroyed themselves internally. They've literally become unrecognizable to themselves. They don't even know who they are anymore at their core because they have spent so much of their life trying to make everybody else happy, where they feel like they've completely lost connection to the core of who they actually are. That was what was happening to me. so concerned about what other people thought of me and what they thought I should be doing or what I should be saying. I didn't want to rock the boat. I didn't want to be a disappointment to the extent that I. Essentially could not even tap into the core of who I was anymore because I didn't even, it was hard to even recognize who was she. I got so far away from what felt authentic to me, that I, I had a hard time even knowing what my truth was. And I really believe a huge part of why I ended up. And that's why I started getting called to go to California was to be able to dissociate myself from all of the voices, the influences that were in my life, just basically telling me you need to do this if you're going to be a good person, you know, you need to follow this set of rules in order for you to be in heaven, you know, like all of the different things that I had been taught I needed to, to live and to be like in order to be a good person or in order to be able to you know, from like the, the church standpoint or whatever, you know, Bye. All of that, I needed to get away from that in order to be able to really feel into and be able to have the, the spiritual guidance to tap into like, no, this is what the truth actually is. This is, this is what your life path is actually meant to be. And my life path is so freaking different, so different than what I thought or what I was taught that it should be. It's complete opposite, like it couldn't even be more polar opposite than the way that I was taught and That makes it very challenging. Like I said with family relationships, but I just know I know in my core I can feel it in my being that this is my path and I don't need other people to, for one thing, understand it, even though it's nice when that happens, and I don't need anybody else to approve of it, because it's my path. This is my life to live. I don't need anybody else to agree with the way that I live my life. And so, I'm wanting to tell you out there that I, if you're a human living on this planet, you are going to be subject to people disagreeing with you. And it might be someone thinking that you should have had a different career. It might be someone thinking that you should have had different education. It might be someone thinking that, you know, they don't agree with the choices that you're making or the ways that you're parenting. Maybe you don't want kids and people think you should have kids. Maybe you have kids and people think you shouldn't have had kids. Maybe people are disapproving about the relationship that you're in, or maybe people are thinking, Oh my God, you're single, you should have a partner. And maybe you're feeling totally okay being single. Maybe you're having, you know society pressures on, you need to live a certain lifestyle that you know, you don't feel is authentic to you. Maybe you are someone who enjoys finer things in life, and so people are kind of judging you about, you know, there are people who could use your money. Why are you spending your money frivolously? I mean, people have an opinion about every single freaking thing. And I'm trying to tell you to Give yourself the permission to tap into the uniqueness of who you are. I am big about following spiritual guidance. I'm big about following your own intuition, your own gut instinct. And one of the things that I aim to do and that my intention is, is to help people learn how to tap into their own internal guidance system. Because it's there, you will be able to feel in your body when something doesn't resonate. So this has gotten way longer than what I had intended, not that I had any specific intention of how long I was going to talk about this, but I just wanted to give myself the permission to come on here and just let it, let it freaking rip. Just this is something I'm very passionate about and I wanted to just let myself talk about it however it was going to come out. And this is what came out today. If you found value in this, please leave a comment, share what resonated with you and I will see you on the next episode.