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hey guys I'm Heidi prev welcome back to my Channel or welcome if this is your first time here today on this channel we are talking about how to start shedding our inauthentic selves or some of the personas or social masks that we have
Heidi Priebe explains how to stop living as an inauthentic social mask by recognizing your true self exists in the present, noticing dissociation, and aligning life choices with authentic feelings.
Key Takeaways
- Your authentic self already exists in you right now and does not need to be created in the future.
- Awareness of when you numb out or detach is the most important step toward authenticity.
- Change should be gradual; you do not need to quit your job or make drastic moves immediately.
- Aligning your environment with your true self is a long-term process that improves with presence and reflection.
What the video covers
- Shedding inauthentic personas is an ongoing process, not a one-step fix, especially for those with shame-bound identities.
- Shame-bound identities create pervasive social masks, often maintained unconsciously through procedural memory and bodily communication.
- The authentic self is not a future version of you; it exists in the present moment as the observer of your thoughts and feelings.
- Step one: open a direct line of communication with your authentic self by observing your energized versus drained responses without trying to change them.
- Step two: notice where you routinely dissociate or numb out (TV, food, substances) and ask what you would feel if you didn't.
- Numbing emotions does not make them disappear; they remain unresolved and are put on the back burner.
- Step three: align environments with your authentic self, gradually choosing rooms and relationships that fit who you are becoming.
- Growth often involves tolerating discomfort in relationships, friendships, family and work without playing savior to every situation.
- Feelings of shame and unmet needs from early relationships may surface during this process and should be observed with compassion.
- Becoming more present with feelings as they arise leads to greater integration of the self over time.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Shedding Inauthentic Personas
- 01:39Understanding Shame-Bound Identity and Social Masks
- 03:20Procedural Memory and Unconscious Communication
- 05:03Step One: Connecting With Your Authentic Self in the Present
- 06:48Step Two: Noticing and Addressing Numbing and Dissociation
- 08:50Step Three: Aligning Your Environment With Your Authentic Self
- 11:00Tolerating Discomfort and Handling Relationship Dynamics
- 13:00Closing Reflections and Encouragement
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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become very used to wearing and that have become deeply ingrained into our own self-concept in order to start showing up more as our authentic selves and I want to be clear that this is not a one-step solution this is an ongoing
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process that most of us will be working with in some capacity for the majority of our lives there are always going to be situations that come up that cause us to put pressure on ourselves to behave in certain ways that might not be the
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most authentic to us but what I want to tackle specifically today is the idea of someone who has a shame bound identity so last week I put out a video called toxic shame what it is and how to heal
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from it and in that video we talk about what it feels like to have developed a social Persona that is actually quite different from who you are at your core because you have a deep belief that who you are at your core is shameful and
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would not be accepted or loved if anyone were to truly see you for who you were and so the very specific I guess point in the healing process that I'm trying to pinpoint here is the point at which
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you may have realized that to a significant extent you have a shame-bound Identity or that very large parts of who you are and the way that you show up in the world are inauthentic because you're trying to keep the world
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away from certain parts of yourself that you consider particularly shameful so this video is for anyone who is recognizing that to be something that they are struggling with but who doesn't yet know exactly what to do about it I
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want to emphasize again when we develop shame-bound identities when we believe that huge part parts of ourselves that are integral to who we are as people are things we have to hide away from the rest of the world that causes us to
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develop a very prominent and pervasive social mask so this isn't just about being overly polite in a few situations or about not standing up for ourselves every once in a while this is about showing up in the world largely as a
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person who does not reflect the you who you are on the inside and it can be very difficult to let go of those types of identities because we are often perpetuating them unconsciously so in the world of attachment Theory we talk a
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lot about the procedural memory system so this is the memory system that remembers things like how to ride a bike or play a piano there are certain things that kind of get into our bones that we do without thinking about and a lot of
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the ways in which we interact with other people particularly in situations where we feel a little bit threatened and which doesn't mean that there's danger present it could just mean we're meeting new people for the first time when we
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feel a little bit on guard well often without realizing it switch quickly into operating from a place of procedural memory around other people so there are certain ways that from a young age we have learned to hold ourselves to
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approach other people to act and behave in response to people that we are actually not consciously thinking about a lot of communication actually happens without our conscious awareness we are not always conscious of let's say the messages that our bodies are giving off
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to other people so a lot of this process is actually going to be about making ourselves aware of how we're coming across differently than how we feel on the inside and what we can do moment to moment over the course of the rest of
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our lives to start showing up more authentically and aligning our inner and outer worlds so the first step in this process is accepting to yourself that the real you has always been inside of you and exists inside of you at this
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exact moment so what I see quite a bit of the time when people start stepping into an awareness that they have been living inauthentically is they'll start to think of their authentic selves as this version of them that exists in the
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future so okay I recognize that I've been operating from a very strong social mask for most of my life and I have an idea of the kind of person that I want to be and maybe the kind of
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person I want to be has a totally different life than me maybe I'm imagining a version of myself who two years from now is in school taking a course that I wish I would have taken 10 years ago maybe this true authentic
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version of me looks different acts different has a different social group works on entirely different projects but it's important to keep in mind that that future version of ourselves were imagining is not a different self it is just a self who is doing actions that
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are more aligned with our inner world but those actions are not the core of who we are okay the core of who we are is the person who is eliciting the thoughts about those actions so the person in there who is imagining all of
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those things and who is able to get an idea of who your authentic self is that is your authentic self and that is a person who exists whether you take actions that are in alignment with them or not which means that person has
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always been inside of you and they're inside of you this very moment your authentic self is just the true thoughts and feelings that you have about whatever is happening and so the first process of aligning yourself with that
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authentic self is just opening a direct line of communication between you and that deeper more authentic version of yourself who has their own thoughts responses and feelings about everything that you are doing so if you really don't like the job
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you're in and you're starting to wake up to this idea my authentic self would not do this job you don't have to quit tomorrow that might not be financially feasible right you just have to start a dialogue with that authentic part of
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yourself that gives you more context about what it is that you do and don't like obviously there's something that's working for you within the situation you have chosen and your authentic self probably has an idea of what that is so
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let them talk to you just see if you can be a little bit more in observer mode of your own mind and your own responses when do I feel really energized and engaged at my work and when do I feel
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really drained or angry or resistant and instead of trying to change those feelings or instead of escaping into a fantasy about things being different what if I were just really present with all of them and just observed them and
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notice them that is you being in your authentic self you don't have to quit your job and go travel the world the first day that you decide to start getting in better touch with yourself you just have to notice what does it
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actually feel like if I stay present with myself when I'm in these situations what are my authentic responses to the life that I currently have and sometimes what comes up is going to be pain that you feel like you can't express your
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actual self in those situations and noticing and logging that pain is all just a part of this process which is step one the process of recognizing that your authentic self does not exist in the future they exist in the present
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moment and they always have and your only job at first is to get in touch with them and start listening to what they are telling you step two in this process this is a very tricky one but in
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my opinion maybe the most important step notice the ways in which you routinely detach from your authentic self in order to keep them safe so where are you dissociating numbing out detaching from your true emotional state and ask
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yourself in those moments if I were to not numb out what would I be feeling instead and I'm going to suggest something that's a little bit unconventional here so I think that there are a lot of things that many of
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us do that we do to numb out so that could be watching four hours of TV at night that could be eating a meal or a dessert we're not really hungry for that could mean using substances of any sort
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to shift our mental state away from an unpleasant Sensation that we have in the present and I think that for many of us we get so caught up on the behavior that we don't want to do I don't want to overeat I don't want to
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drink I don't want to complain or vent as much as I do that we lose sight of what's underlying all of that and what's underlying all of that is the real problem that needs to be tackled and I
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want to be clear here there are many things people use to numb out their true emotional states that can be physically harmful so what I am not saying here is if you have an addiction to some sort of
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substance that is putting your health at risk ignore that addiction and don't get help for it if you are struggling with an addiction I highly advise you to get help that specifically targets that addiction whether that is a 12-step
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program whether that is a Therapy Program whatever it is that you feel like is going to help you return to physical well-being I highly recommend that being said if you do not feel as though the addiction to the substance or
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to the behavior or the thought pattern that you use to numb out is threatening your life but you find yourself in kind of an ongoing self-struggle around whether or not to engage in that behavior something that has worked well
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for me is telling myself I can do this Behavior I can have a couple drinks I can overeat one night I can watch 10 episodes of a TV show and numb out but I have to the next day or whenever I feel
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capable of returning to the situation mentally I have to process what it was that I was avoiding in that moment so if I'm feeling really angry and overwhelmed and I decide in this moment I'm going to deal with this by having a drink or by
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having a dessert or whatever it is that I use to numb out I'm not going to have the whole argument with myself in my head of oh I shouldn't eat or drink so much I'm just gonna do the thing that I
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feel like I need to do in the moment but I am not going to allow myself to end there after I have the drink after I eat the food after whatever it is that I do to numb out I'm going to revisit what it
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was that triggered me to want to do that thing and I'm going to sit with that emotion until I have processed it did I go out and get drunk last night because I was feeling really ashamed of something okay it's time to sit down
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with that shame really pull it into my body and be present with it am I avoiding a conversation with someone that I think is pretty important because I'm angry and I don't want to express that anger okay if I avoided that
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conversation I later have to sit with myself and really pull that anger into my body and listen to what it is telling me my true authentic self which includes my true feelings my true responses to situations my true judgments and
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opinions about things they don't go away when I numb them out they just permanently get put on the back burner so by figuring out which things I'm putting on the back burner in those moments and forcing myself once the
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moment has passed to bring those things back up to the front burner is going to help me learn that there's not an escape from this thing permanently and I find that form myself the longer I use this process for the more I find myself
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wanting to skip the first step if I know that I can go out and do something that numbs the feeling I'm feeling but later I'm going to have to feel it anyways it starts to feel a lot more convenient to
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just do the feeling in the present moment my body starts to learn okay I'm not giving myself an out so I might as well just get it over with faster and what this does over a long period of
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time is that it teaches ourselves that none of our emotions are that scary or intolerable sometimes in the moment we might be freaked out we might be triggered we might not feel capable of really sitting down with ourselves and being present
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with whatever it is that we're feeling but in the long run we learn if I can approach things from a more regulated State and I find that no feeling is truly as scary as I thought it was in
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the moment maybe it's actually okay to feel those things in the moment maybe my body doesn't need to freak out and overreact every time I feel a little bit angry a little bit ashamed whatever it is and the more we realize that and
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the more we're able to be present with the feelings we're feeling in the moment that we're feeling them the more integrated we become but it's okay if it's a little bit of a process to get to that place step number three for living
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in a more authentic way and this one sounds like a bit of a no-brainer but honestly it took me a very long time to figure this one out is start putting yourself in situations that feel easy and naturally aligned with who your
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authentic self is so I remember when I was a teenager I was a very wanderlusty teen like I wanted to get out and explore and see the world and As I Grew into a young adult and went to
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University and then started working my first job I quite often felt like where are all the people who are like me like I want to go meet the people who share my same passions and drives and Curiosities and interests and one day it
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occurred to me the people who are like me are probably out in the world doing all the things that I want to be doing but that I'm too afraid to do and so I started prioritizing traveling and getting out and seeing the world and
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working three jobs as I put myself through school to make sure I can make all of that happen and I started finding the more I traveled at that time in my life the more I found it easy to express
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who I authentically was because I was putting myself in situations that were a natural extension of who I was and what was going on for me on the inside and I want to be clear that this is likely to change over the course of your
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life there came a time after about half a decade of being a digital Nomad that I realized I actually need to start putting myself in rooms with people who don't want to travel all the time anymore now an extension of my authentic
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self is someone who is a lot more centered and grounded and self-aware and I need to be putting myself in rooms with people who reflect those values more so than the values of curiosity and expansion and exploration which were my
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driving force for a period of time but the time has changed but the important part is recognizing what traits or ideals feel like a natural extension of you at a given point in time and then trying as much as you are able to start
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building an environment for yourself where those things are the social norm and so if you're someone who has spent a lot of their life feeling really not aligned or even deeply in touch with your authentic self a good question to
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start asking yourself might just be what would someone like me be doing if there were a version of me that I know I am at this point a little bit too cautious or nervous or unsure of to fully Express if I can imagine that
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version of me as almost a separate person who is not at all afraid to go live the life that they want to live what would that person be doing where would they be when they woke up in the
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morning how would they plan their day what events would they attend which types of friend groups would they have and the clearer an idea you can get of the kind of person in authentic version of you would be and what they would be
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out doing in the world if they were an entity who is separate from you the better an idea you're going to start forming of which types of environments you want to eventually aim to put yourself in more and more long term in
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order to make it easy on yourself to express who you authentically are because it really does matter right I think that there can be this idea people have where it's like if I'm just authentic and if I'm myself that and I
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can be the same me everywhere I go kind of like there's an element of Truth to that for sure but there are also always going to be people and environments and circumstances that are better able to mirror you back to you
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accurately and it's almost always going to feel better to be in those environments most of the time than it is to be in an environment where you're working against the grain and always having to work a little bit extra to
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make yourself heard understood whatever it is and again this is a long-term solution it doesn't happen in one day but developing an overall growing awareness of which types of environments feel more you is going to help tremendously in the long run as you can
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start to find subtle opportunities that get you moving in the direction of those types of environments step number four in the process of shedding the inauthentic version of yourself and stepping more into the authentic version is allow yourself the gift of feeling
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discomfort I think that for most of us the places where our social masks come on the most strongly and the most instinctually are situations in which we feel uncomfortable now I want to be clear there are times when it's not the wrong
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choice to wear a social mask particularly if we're in an environment where it's not safe for us to be particularly open and vulnerable but I think that a lot of the time the reason we immediately jump into our
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false personas is because we don't want to feel awkward we are terrified of feeling awkward however awkwardness is a very natural response to situations that we're not feeling aligned with and also it can be present in situations that are
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wonderful and growing but most of us when we really check in with ourselves know the difference so I'll give an example here it's only in really the last year Loosely of my life that I've decided I am going to approach dating
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from a place of authenticity so I have a tendency when I am on let's say a first date to want to keep the energy really high to want to make the other person feel really good and like I'm really
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interested in what they're saying even if I personally feel like I have no interest in or chemistry with this person and where that has often led me in the past is directly into a lot of situations where I will walk away from
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the date with this person who thinks that I really like them and who might be really excited to have a second date because they think we got along super well well I'm over here feeling like well I had nothing in common with that
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person and I have no interest in seeing them again and then I'm creating a huge discrepancy between my authentic self and my reality and that becomes really difficult to bridge because now I have to find a way to explain to this person
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I actually don't want to go on a second date even though it probably felt to you like our first date went phenomenally and the bigger the Gap is between the reality of what we're thinking and feeling and how we're behaving the more
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difficult communication becomes right however if I go on a date and when I feel awkward I just let it be a little bit awkward I don't rush in to savior myself from the situation or to save you're the other person from the
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situation I let there be reasonable silences and gaps in the conversation I don't pretend to agree with things I actually don't agree with now the ways in which we're incompatible are going to be right there on the surface they're
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going to be felt within the interaction and I'm not saying throw politeness out the window or anything like that but I'm saying notice the moments where you want to rush in with a very false energy and in those moments stop yourself and
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ask yourself how can I stay closer to my authentic reaction in this moment while still being respectful of the other person and if you're able to do that then you're able to walk away from interactions feeling like if there was
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high energy and excitement and great Vibes it's because I actually connected with them and if there were long pauses and low energy and big awkward gaps in conversation at least now we're probably both on the same page in recognizing
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that this just isn't the best fit and it doesn't mean there's something wrong with either of us we just aren't necessarily the right people for each other and this could be the case in dating relationships it could be the
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case in friendships it can be the case in family Dynamics it can be the case at work anytime you are allowing yourself the gift of being a little bit uncomfortable without playing savior to the situation you're allowing your
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authentic self to exist in the real world and so you are not creating this giant gap between what's true and how you're acting air go it gets a lot easier to communicate authentically because the Gap is no longer humongous
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so this is a gift that you're giving yourself and other people because it's just so much less confusing than the alternative in Step number five when it comes to living from a more authentic and embodied sense of cell is staying
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present with yourself in the moments that are difficult if you are allowing yourself to move into those spaces where things feel awkward and uncomfortable and maybe wear conflicts that you would have otherwise avoided are getting handled head on and
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directly it's highly likely that you're going to start feeling some difficult emotions that you normally avoid through covering up anything negative that might come up interpersonally and in those moments when we feel those things that awkwardness that maybe brings up
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feelings of Shame or anxiety or loneliness those are the moments where we need to stay the most present and on our own team because those are the moments we most naturally want to split off from ourselves to tell ourselves the story
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the way you're feeling is not okay ergo it is my false self's job to rush in and save the day we need to be patient with ourselves and teach ourselves now we are adults and these difficult emotions that
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come up I can handle maybe my parent did not do the best job at staying present with me in moments where they were feeling shame or when I was feeling shame and expressing it to them even if that was
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not their intention maybe they learned that because they were raised that way but when we don't have ourselves mirrored back to ourselves in those key moments early on we learn to detach from ourselves in those moments as adults
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so the final step in this process is learning to stop detaching from ourselves in the moments where we would otherwise split off if I have an awkward interaction and I feel overwhelmed with shame if something happens between myself and someone I
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care about and I suddenly feel really angry if I make a mistake and I feel overrun with guilt and like I want to rush out and fond to repair the situation those are the moments I need myself the most to be present with me to
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learn how to tolerate those emotional experiences without immediately rushing in to fix them and to extract the lessons that can be learned from those emotions and to allow myself to develop a greater understanding of what my feelings are telling me this is how we
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build our authentic selves into very wise and caring people who have emotional discernment and that emotional discernment is an upward spiral because it allows us to stay present and engaged enough to tell what feels right for us what we feel aligned with and what feels
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wrong for us or like it's not for us and the more that we are present with ourselves and other people and can recognize the feeling of yes this is for me or no this is not for me in the
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moment the better we get at making decisions about which types of situations it is wise and healthy and growing for us to place ourselves in and the more we place ourselves in environments where it is a wise healthy and growing opportunity for
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our authentic selves to engage with the stronger that self-relationship grows and the more we are able to show up as the person we actually are so the wonderful thing about all of this is that it is a process that builds on
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itself and I want to be clear it takes time it's not overnight and a big part of the process is making mistakes along the way and not kicking ourselves off of our own team when we make those mistakes but
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being the wise inner parents we need for ourselves and going those mistakes are part of the learning process they are important and if we can be present with them they are an opportunity to do something differently and learn in
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places where we once dissociated and then repeated the same mistakes over and over it sounds very corny but if you can get to the place where you truly mess something up and do something wrong and go this is an opportunity I am thankful
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for to pattern interrupt myself and change the way that I'm approaching this situation you learn that there's not that much to fear when it comes to making mistakes which means you can take more risks and get more out of your life
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which is an awesome outcome to eventually arrive at all right I think that is all I have to say for today on this topic though honestly I could talk about it forever as always let me know what's coming up for you guys I love you
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all I hope you're taking care of yourselves and each other and your authentic inner children and I will see you back here again really soon foreign [Music]
Topics:authenticityshame-bound identitysocial maskself-discoveryattachment theorydissociationemotional healingself-awarenessinner childpersonal growth
