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Who Am I Without My Survival Mechanisms? | Identity, Healing & Self-Awareness · The Spiritual Shitshow Podcast

• 0:00
  Julie Nguyen: Hello and welcome back to the Spiritual Shit Show podcast.
• 0:02
  Julie Nguyen: My name is Julie Nguyen, and over the weekend, man, oh man, it felt like the wound of the wound of the wound of the wound was coming to the surface.
• 0:12
  Julie Nguyen: I personally love this work because the deeper I go within myself, the more I'm able to see not only how I am in relationships, but When I can really understand more parts of myself and what is living inside of me, the more I can see like, wow, that is how I relate to the world.
• 0:34
  Julie Nguyen: This is how I feel about relationships.
• 0:36
  Julie Nguyen: This is my dance.
• 0:38
  Julie Nguyen: I'm really understanding how I literally dance with my life, with the world, with people.
• 0:44
  Julie Nguyen: And it's all based on my sense of safety.
• 0:49
  Julie Nguyen: It's all coming from my patterning that I've developed just from being human, and every experience is giving me a little nugget of information, and then I use that nugget of information for the next experience that I have.
• 1:04
  Julie Nguyen: Friday in yoga class, I was laying in Shavasana and I had this sensation wave over me of what corpse pose really was.
• 1:15
  Julie Nguyen: And so I'm laying in Shavasana and I'm hearing corpse pose and I'm laying there and I was like,"Whoa, I'm really feeling into my body right now." And I had this vision of me also laying next to me, but it's this version of myself that needs to, disintegrate And then that catapulted me into a weekend of, again, like I said, the wound of the wound of the wound of the wound coming to the forefront.
• 1:40
  Julie Nguyen: And in all of this, it led me down this idea of How do you know when you're genuinely feeling good about yourself versus when you've just become really fucking good at convincing yourself that you feel good?
• 1:59
  Julie Nguyen: So let me explain Have you ever been somewhere and you're feeling yourself?
• 2:04
  Julie Nguyen: And you're walking around, you feel like Beyoncé, you're confident, you're beautiful, you're magnetic, and you're having the best time.
• 2:10
  Julie Nguyen: And then somebody takes a picture, and you see the picture, and you're like,"Oh my God, what the fuck?
• 2:14
  Julie Nguyen: Do I really look like that right now?" Because that is not what you thought you looked like.
• 2:19
  Julie Nguyen: In your head, you're like Beyoncé, and apparently, according to this photograph, you are not Beyoncé.
• 2:26
  Julie Nguyen: And there's something underneath this that I've been exploring, because here's the thing Was the way I felt about myself any less real just because the photograph didn't match the image I had in my head?
• 2:40
  Julie Nguyen: And why did seeing the photograph suddenly have the power to change how I felt about an experience that up until that moment had been incredible?
• 2:50
  Julie Nguyen: I'm feeling like a superstar I'm using this metaphor because I think it goes so much deeper than photographs, and I think this is what happens with our identities.
• 2:59
  Julie Nguyen: And again, when we start doing this deeper, deeper, deeper work, the wound of the wound of the wound of the wound, we begin to awaken to what our identity is, how that's showing up in our day-to-day lives, but also where it bloomed from.
• 3:18
  Julie Nguyen: Where was that seed planted in your life that is now a part of your reality?
• 3:26
  Julie Nguyen: And I will say that the unearthing of these stories are, that live inside of us are the, the unearthing of, these what may now be weeds that you don't want in your internal garden, it can be so uncomfortable to sit with.
• 3:44
  Julie Nguyen: So uncomfortable.
• 3:47
  Julie Nguyen: I always love to tell people, hold so much compassion for yourself if you're diving into the healing work because it can be reckoning.
• 3:54
  Julie Nguyen: Because you're seeing these parts of yourself and how you've related not only to yourself, but like I said, to the world and relationships and all, everything.
• 4:04
  Julie Nguyen: And then when you awaken to it, it's like, whoa.
• 4:07
  Julie Nguyen: Then some cleanup work has to happen I am realizing more and more and more about my own personal identity.
• 4:16
  Julie Nguyen: And I thought that when I lost that, quote-unquote, identity when I left the dance studio 10 years ago, that I understood the gravity of not being Miss Julie anymore and not having a title to my name that I did.
• 4:32
  Julie Nguyen: You know, when people ask the question,"What do you do?" I didn't have an answer, and sometimes I still don't have an answer and through all of that, I can see how much of my survival mechanisms kicked in after that event that happened 10 years ago when I literally left everything.
• 4:50
  Julie Nguyen: the way I can describe it is I was sitting at a banquet and with all of this abundance, and then it was gone.
• 4:58
  Julie Nguyen: What I'm realizing now is from that point on, it was like I was holding my breath and trying to keep myself in some state of survival and relevance.
• 5:10
  Julie Nguyen: And the idea of becoming no one and being nothing and not having a title or an identity or whatever was terrifying.
• 5:23
  Julie Nguyen: And what I am realizing now, that it's come up over the weekend is, I'm starting to question what have I learned from that period of my life that is showing up in my life now?
• 5:34
  Julie Nguyen: And can I rest in a corpse pose, so to speak, to allow these parts of myself that I no longer need because I'm awakening to them, that I'm giving them permission to disintegrate What if some of the ways I've learned to feel good about myself are actually survival mechanisms?
• 5:56
  Julie Nguyen: What if I've become really good at hyping myself up, at creating these beautiful stories about who I am, what I'm capable of, what my life means?
• 6:06
  Julie Nguyen: And listen, I'm not saying that these stories aren't true.
• 6:09
  Julie Nguyen: That's the important part.
• 6:10
  Julie Nguyen: But I am beginning to wonder whether there's something even deeper beneath them.
• 6:16
  Julie Nguyen: Because when you've spent portions of your life in survival mode, or for me, pretty much all of my life in survival mode, you learn how to keep yourself going.
• 6:25
  Julie Nguyen: You learn how to motivate yourself.
• 6:27
  Julie Nguyen: I always say, I'm gaslighting myself sometimes, but that's a beautiful way of keeping myself safe.
• 6:33
  Julie Nguyen: You learn how to make meaning out of difficult experiences.
• 6:37
  Julie Nguyen: I'm also learning that is really annoying, that I am really good at making meaning out of everything.
• 6:44
  Julie Nguyen: And then that's leading me to question, is that just a survival mechanism?
• 6:48
  Julie Nguyen: And I'm thinking it is I've learned how to become my own cheerleader in life, and yes, it is necessary.
• 6:56
  Julie Nguyen: It is so good.
• 6:57
  Julie Nguyen: These qualities are not bad.
• 7:00
  Julie Nguyen: But what happens when you're no longer living in the same circumstances that required those types of survival mechanisms?
• 7:08
  Julie Nguyen: What happens when you don't need to keep convincing yourself that you're okay?
• 7:14
  Julie Nguyen: I'm gonna say that one more time because I need it to land in my heart.
• 7:20
  Julie Nguyen: What happens when you don't need to keep convincing yourself that you're okay?
• 7:27
  Julie Nguyen: And what happens when you are actually okay?
• 7:32
  Julie Nguyen: The questions that are coming in for me when I ask that is, can I identify in my life where I still overextend or people please?
• 7:43
  Julie Nguyen: Can I put down this performance?
• 7:46
  Julie Nguyen: Can I put down the story?
• 7:49
  Julie Nguyen: Can I stop needing to turn every experience into something that proves that, okay, it's okay, everything's working out, I'm growing, I'm healing, I'm evolving, I'm becoming And then that leads to can I just be and be here now?
• 8:10
  Julie Nguyen: Over the weekend when things got really, really crunchy, I left.
• 8:14
  Julie Nguyen: I was like,"I need to leave.
• 8:15
  Julie Nguyen: I need to get into nature." So I went to the lake, and I just felt like this incredible swirl of emotions in my body, and it was like hopeful and devastating and angry and blissful and empowering and fuck it all at the same time.
• 8:32
  Julie Nguyen: And I was just like,"You know what?
• 8:34
  Julie Nguyen: I'm just gonna let it all be here.
• 8:36
  Julie Nguyen: I'm noticing it all, and I'm just gonna notice step after step after step after step that I am taking around the lake." And as I did that, I just kept on feeling more and more into like the meatiness of my body And then I was just like,"Okay, be here now.
• 8:54
  Julie Nguyen: Be here now." And of course, because this is the Spiritual Shit Show, I had worn the wrong freaking shoes.
• 9:01
  Julie Nguyen: I really didn't intend to go to the lake to walk around it, but I just started moving'cause I knew I needed to move through these emotions.
• 9:07
  Julie Nguyen: And halfway around the lake, my shoes were rubbing the back of my ankles, and they were killing me.
• 9:12
  Julie Nguyen: And there I was, walking around this beautiful lake, trying to make sense of what the fuck I was feeling in the moment, and back of my ankles are killing me.
• 9:20
  Julie Nguyen: And then I started to think about that discomfort and how much of my life I've spent trying to get out of discomfort, trying to understand it, trying to fix it, trying to heal it, trying to find the spiritual lesson in it.
• 9:34
  Julie Nguyen: And then I had this realization.
• 9:36
  Julie Nguyen: What if the invitation isn't always to get out of the discomfort?
• 9:40
  Julie Nguyen: What if the invitation is to become more deeply acquainted with myself while I'm in it?
• 9:46
  Julie Nguyen: As everything begins to land just a little bit more deeper in my body And that actually feels more human.
• 9:53
  Julie Nguyen: It feels more grounded in the actual experience of being alive.
• 9:58
  Julie Nguyen: I've realized that so much of my spiritual journey is up, up, and away I'm not really anchored into the full experience of life because there's so many parts of life that I haven't felt safe with or I want to escape So how can I be here?
• 10:16
  Julie Nguyen: How can I be here?
• 10:17
  Julie Nguyen: How can I be here now?
• 10:19
  Julie Nguyen: How can I be more grounded in the actual experience of being alive and not just the spiritualized version of the experience, not the Instagram version, not the version where everything becomes a beautiful lesson and everything is beautiful, but just the actual experience so what does this feel like to have these old versions of yourself dying?
• 10:45
  Julie Nguyen: Or what I like to say is just composting.
• 10:49
  Julie Nguyen: Composting.
• 10:51
  Julie Nguyen: And I think I'm beginning to understand something about that, that these parts of us that are composting, they're not the bad parts.
• 11:00
  Julie Nguyen: They're the parts that worked really, really hard to keep us alive, to keep us relevant, to keep us safe Can I honor that there's a part of me that wants to be impressive, that there's a part of me that wants to be successful, that there's a part of me that wants to be seen and valued, that there's a part of me that wants to be beautiful, that there's a part of me that wants to have everything figured out?
• 11:26
  Julie Nguyen: and can I allow these parts, especially this part that is always needing to turn pain into purpose Disintegrate Compost and at the same time know that those parts deserve some gratitude, cause it's what got me here And I'm like,"Wow, these parts have really been working hard for me for a really long time." And what happens if I just don't need them to run the show anymore?
• 11:54
  Julie Nguyen: Can I be confident without needing to convince myself that I'm extraordinary?
• 11:59
  Julie Nguyen: Can I feel beautiful without needing a photograph to confirm it?
• 12:04
  Julie Nguyen: Can I have an incredible experience without needing to turn it into proof of something?
• 12:11
  Julie Nguyen: And can I just be me?
• 12:12
  Julie Nguyen: Can I be a woman having a really good time, still trying to figure out her shit, still sharing, still loving the things that I love?
• 12:23
  Julie Nguyen: And can I really land in that self-awareness and can I practice the really beautiful art of self-awareness as more of a compassionate understanding versus the thing that I hide behind because sometimes I'm too afraid to live?
• 12:45
  Julie Nguyen: to live my fullest, most authentic self I'm gonna end the podcast here for now I'm gonna move into this day knowing that I don't have to be extraordinary to be enough just for today.
• 13:02
  Julie Nguyen: And today, can I be here now?
• 13:05
  Julie Nguyen: Thank you for being here.
• 13:07
  Julie Nguyen: Till next time