Figuring out who I am

People pleasing has led to a lack of identity so we're on the road to reintroducing myself to myself, and in turn, to you.

Hey *waves* I’m currently in the Lake District by myself contemplating everything as I’ve decided to go cold turkey on my socials and not spend as much time on my phone. It’s actually going pretty good and I’m actually enjoying being bored. It’s allowing me time to focus on the things that I want to do and furthermore discover new things that I want to do in the process. It’s only been a few days so far but maaaaate, the insights I’ve been getting have been insane.

Have a nosey through some of my ramblings below and let me know your thoughts…

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I’ve spent the majority of my life not really knowing what I wanted to do, spending all of my time around other people because I thought they gave me energy. It turns out that I was giving them all of my energy instead. Subconsciously, I was expending more energy trying to fit in and make everyone happy rather than doing what I wanted to do and, more importantly, being myself.

I’ve never really known who I am because I have always been a byproduct of everyone around me. I am a chameleon, changing my colours depending on what friend group I am spending time with. I would always arrive home after an outing with my friends, absolutely exhausted mentally. I didn’t realise up until recently that I was masking in order to fit in. Pretending to be happy and positive so that other people would feel good about themselves, so that other people would like me and enjoy spending time with me. I created a persona that I thought other people would like, but it drained me due to keeping up appearances.

As soon as I made a conscious decision to try and drop this persona, that’s when I started to feel lonely. Essentially, I didn’t know who I was anymore, or who I ever was. I didn’t know the difference between what I really liked and what I liked because other people liked it. What have we been conditioned to do in life and what do we actually want? I just wanted (and still want) to figure out what it is that lights me up, what I actually want to do.

To start figuring myself out I had to really listen to myself and that meant spending more time alone to really listen to my body and what it needs, wants and craves. Every single decision I made, I second guessed because I was going outside of my comfort zone. A walk without headphones? Your brain will be going haywire with overthinking. Delete social media? I use it for my work and I’ll get major FOMO without it. Reading more and scrolling less? Absolutely unthinkable, I cannot concentrate on any one thing for more than 5 mins.

Guess what? I did all of those things and the world didn’t end. In fact, it made the world a bit more calmer for my brain. In a world of overstimulation, sometimes you need to be under-stimulated to bring out the best of you.

The loneliness started when I stopped looking outside of myself for validation. A lot of my friendships were based on me seeking validation to make me feel better, seeking an outside perspective to help me realise that life wasn’t that bad after all and that I was likely just being overdramatic. As soon as I stopped doing that and looked for the answers in myself, I saw how lonely truly prioritising yourself could be.

For a people pleaser, someone who values others over oneself, prioritising yourself is honestly the most difficult thing. You’re going against everything that you know to be true, and your brain fights back in order to protect you from all of the “bad things” that are going to happen when you do this. The brain doesn’t know the difference between fantasy and reality so essentially it’s just stacking up the evidence from the past or what ifs for the future. “Remember that one time you tried to relax and ended up on your phone, that’s going to happen again” “If you switch off your phone for a day, what if your parents are dying and nobody can reach you”. There’s always an excuse or a piece of evidence to back up the brains reasoning.

The brain is only trying to protect you. Its one purpose is to protect you from harm, protect the host at all costs. It’s not trying to sabotage you in what you want to do, it’s only trying to save you. It doesn’t know that what you want to do is actually pretty harmless because it’s got all this “evidence” stacked up of all the bad things that could potentially go wrong.

When you create new evidence of what you’re doing by constantly going out of your comfort zone and trying new things, the brain will see that what you’re doing is actually okay.

I needed to be alone whilst going on this part of my journey. I’m extremely susceptible to listening to others more than listening to myself and my own gut, so I needed to have this alone time to truly listen to myself.

I’m still figuring things out, obviously, but am definitely making some new decisions in my life that are going to benefit me. I’m shit scared to make some of them because I’m still afraid of the backlash I will receive from other people (hello people pleaser) but I know in my heart that this is something that will benefit me in the long run and why can’t I be the priority in my life for once. What about me?