From Hiding to Shining: Peeling Back Layers of the Mask to Reveal Your Innermost Sparks of Genius

Feeling like you can’t express your true self without fear of rejection or misunderstanding? Are you sacrificing your authenticity to fit in or gain acceptance?

What if instead, you could embrace your deep, sensitive soul and shine as your authentic self? It’s possible. And it's easier than you think!

If you're like most sensitive souls, you want to feel understood and accepted for who you truly are.

In today’s episode, I’m going to give you steps to unmask your true nature and step into your authenticity. Whether you've been hiding out of fear or playing small to avoid rejection, you can learn to trust yourself and stand up for your truth.

You have the power to embrace your authenticity and thrive, shining brightly as your unique pixel in the bigger picture of life.

Transcript

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Expressing Authentic Self With Confidence

Michelle Dowker 1:06

Today's episode is one that I pulled out of my recording vault of episodes that I've recorded over the last couple of years as I was preparing to put together this podcast . In today's episode , I speak from the heart about expressing who you are with confidence and not fearing what other people are going to think or say about you and who you are . I provide some very important perspective shifting analogies to help you see yourself in a different light , especially if you've had a tendency to mask parts of yourself , play small or hide parts of you away out of fear of judgment , and how to turn that around for yourself , so that you can express yourself fully and confidently in who you are and in your work , so that you can contribute to the greater good of humanity in the best way that is designed for who you are . Today I want to talk about the importance of expressing the true , authentic you , standing up for who you truly are , instead of hiding yourself , playing small or being someone that you're not .

Michelle Dowker 2:22

I know for those of us who are deep , sensitive souls , oftentimes we feel misunderstood . Oftentimes we've felt historically like we don't fit in or that maybe we don't feel like we're accepted in certain groups or within certain communities or around certain people , and because of that , many of us who are deep , sensitive souls have had a tendency to mask ourselves , to pretend that we're someone that we're not , in order to not be rejected or to be accepted . We might play small , we might hide ourselves , keep our voice suppressed , not express our true thoughts , not be who we really truly are . This helped us to survive some challenging or difficult situations in our lives . This was a survival response to play small , to mask ourselves , to try to be someone that we're not , in order to survive or fit in . Because our developmental needs , especially before the age of seven , is to get acceptance and feel belonging and safety , especially from the adults around us that are raising us . And if we didn't get that , then we are going to adopt these survival behaviors in order to try to get that in any way we can , even if it's only for a fleeting moment , even if it's not a true or deep connection of belonging or safety . But it's enough to help us get by . Survival mechanisms help us to get by , but what helps us to survive is not what helps us to thrive , and you'll hear me say this over and over and over again , because it's that important to recognize that what helped you get through these difficult situations is not the same behavior , perspective and paradigm that's going to help you thrive and flourish and step into your fullest potential . So I want to give you an analogy today that might be helpful to help you see the importance of actually stepping into your truth and expressing your true nature , not hide it away , not mask it , not to try to be someone else , but to be you .

Michelle Dowker 4:48

Think about a television screen , especially the old school television screens that were made up of all sorts of little , tiny pixels , and each pixel puts off a certain type of light at a certain color , certain frequency , and when you take all those little pixels all together , they make up a bigger picture . You need to have all of these pixels lit in order to see the whole big picture on the television screen clearly . Now what happens if some of those pixels are not lit ? Then what happens is that you're going to see these dark regions of the screen , of the bigger picture . You're not going to see the full picture clearly . And so imagine that each and every one of us is a pixel , and if your pixel is not lit because you're hiding , you're masking and you're being someone else other than yourself , then that bigger picture is not going to be clear . Your contribution to the bigger picture of this world is to shine your pixel and shine it bright , and that's how we're going to see the whole picture . And I know this can be . This can feel intimidating , right , especially if you have been hiding out of safety your whole life .

Michelle Dowker 6:13

There's many steps that you can take to help yourself connect with your true nature and feel comfortable expressing your true nature . Always start with nervous system regulation . This is always something that I tell people to start with . It's the foundation of the work that I do . It's the starting point so that you can build your house on a strong foundation of a well-regulated nervous system with a nice wide window of tolerance . But , of course , don't stop there . That's the starting point to create the nice strong foundation so that you can build yourself .

Michelle Dowker 6:48

Upon Going through a journey of unconditioning from all the conditioned beliefs that you have been led to believe , you needed to follow all the expectations and the shoulds from within yourself , but mostly from what has been modeled to you through the behavior that you've been exposed to , through the values that you've been exposed to , through the experiences that you've had , that you put meanings to , that created the beliefs that you carry within yourself . So the experiences that you have when you have those experiences , you put meanings to them and the meanings that you've put to them leads to a belief , and that belief creates a perspective . One of the first steps is to uncondition from these beliefs and the perspectives and the meanings that you put to your experiences so that you can create new meanings , so that you can see a wider perspective of what else is possible outside of what you've been told to believe About yourself , about others , about how life operates , about how reality works . There are always other ways to look at things , especially yourself . When you change the way you look at things , the things you look at change , and this is especially important when it comes to how you look at yourself and your conditioned beliefs .

Michelle Dowker 8:08

All that conditioning that has been put on you really impacts how you see yourself . So it's really important to actually identify all of the conditioning , because really it's kind of like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain and you have been thinking one way about it and it's been controlling you and running your life , and when you see the truth that it's just some old , feeble guy behind a curtain with trick levers , then you realize the truth of all this conditioning it's been running your life for all this time and you realize it's actually not real and that can take some time . That can take some time to have that actually kind of like percolate in and understand it not only from an intellectual or mind level but actually understand it from your being from within yourself . Right , I see this over and over again with my clients . Is there's the one point where they're like , yeah , yeah , I get it . And then there's this next point , after they've done some of this shifting work , where then they go oh , I get it now . I know you've told me this half a dozen times and I thought I got it , now I get it .

Michelle Dowker 9:25

This is the magic of not only doing the conscious work , the top down work , but also doing the subconscious shifting work and the bottom up , somatic body processing work and shifting on an energetic level , because we are not just physical , we are energy . This has been proven . All of these things shift how you perceive things , how you see things , how you think about things and how you interact with your thoughts , and it changes your entire inner paradigm . And it starts with unconditioning from all the things that you thought were the truth , and now you're realizing , oh , that was just like the wizard behind the curtain .

Michelle Dowker 10:11

Once you see that , then you can start to really meet who you are , identify who that person is underneath all those layers of conditioning , really develop a new , up-leveled , compassionate relationship with that person , get to know who you really are , what you really want , and as you do , you start to learn how to trust yourself and trust your inner knowing and trust your voice , especially when you've been told that what you're saying is not true or you've been gaslit or you've been made to believe that who you are isn't acceptable . And I mean this is especially true , for example , for me being a highly sensitive person . For most of my life I was led to believe that my sensitivity was a flaw , that was wrong , that I needed to fix and that led me to not trust myself . When you're told over and over and over again you're conditioned to believe who you are and what you're saying and what you're about is wrong , of course you're not going to trust yourself . But it was like the wizard behind the curtain .

Michelle Dowker 11:18

And once you can see that truth and start to accept yourself and love yourself and have compassion for yourself , then you can learn how to trust yourself . And you can learn what the language is of your inner guidance system because it has a language and you can learn to translate it and decipher it and hear it . And then you can start to stand up for your truth and start expressing yourself and your voice and your truth and no longer hide , no longer play small and no longer try to be somebody else in order to gain acceptance or avoid rejection , because you find that acceptance within yourself and when you do , you realize the truth that if somebody is not accepting you and somebody is rejecting you , it's because they're not meant for you . They're all unique . We all resonate at our own unique radio station frequencies . We play our own music and some music stations , some people are not going to like that style of music .

Michelle Dowker 12:17

So if you're classical music , the heavy metal station , people aren't necessarily going to like what you're saying , doing , playing , and that doesn't make you wrong . It doesn't mean that you're wrong or that anything is wrong with you . It's just that those people are vibing over here and you're vibing over here and that does not mean that you should try to change yourself to fit in with the heavy metal music people over at this station , because then you're not going to be in alignment with your authenticity , they're not going to get to know the real you and you're not going to be happy , you're not going to be shining your pixel of the big picture and because of that , everybody is going to miss out on seeing the true bigger picture with clarity . Not only does it benefit you to connect with yourself and staying strong for your truth and be authentic for yourself , but it benefits everybody , everybody , not just you , but it starts with you . You need to do this for you first , and if you don't , then everybody misses out .

Permission to Shine

Michelle Dowker 13:26

I hope this is a helpful analogy for you , a helpful perspective shift to remind you of the importance , how important it is for you to connect with yourself , understand who you are , what you actually want and stand up for it . Stand up for your truth , express your truth , be authentic and don't hide . The world needs you now more than ever to do that . And if this has been you and you've been hiding yourself or trying to be someone else or trying to change yourself , I hope this helps you realize and recognize the importance of coming home to you . Take what you need leave the rest behind , and I hope this was helpful .

Michelle Dowker 14:07

If this episode resonated with you and you're looking for some personalized guidance to help you move and expand through these perspective shifts and into your fullest version of yourself in your life and your work , you might find my eight week self discovery intensive Permission to Shine to be something that you might find interesting .

Michelle Dowker 14:31

In Permission to Shine , I guide you one on one through a personalized journey where I help you to give yourself the fullest permission to express your truth unapologetically , and you're going to learn how to run your business and your work from a place of inner , authentic alignment , where every aspect resonates with your values , your passions and your deepest desires and you feel fully confident to express your own inner message unapologetically . By the end of our eight week journey together , you'll confidently drop the masks , play big and share your most powerful gifts with the world . As a result , you'll experience exponential growth and impact , fulfillment and income . If this sounds like something you're looking for , check out the details in the show notes and fill out the application form , and then we can set up a discussion to see if we're a fit to work together . If this sounds like you , I look forward to hearing from you .