In today’s episode we talk about what it means to share our true selves with the world and what exists in our reality that holds us back. We share how a healing song changed this perspective for all of us, and inspired us to live our lives boldly and more authentically. Enjoy.
Dani: Hi, ladies. How are we doing this morning?
Candace: Hello I’m good. How are you?
Natalie: Good. How are you?
Dani: I’m really good.
Candace: Awesome. Love that energy.
Dani: Natalie, do you have a card for us?
Natalie: I do today. We have a card, which is shining bright.
Candace: Are you serious?
Natalie: Yeah. It says, “I trust the fire of passion that burns in my heart. That deeply felt instinct about what I want to do next on my path. I shine in my glory and greatness, and revel in my creative power. I am filled with gratitude for my life. My strength, beauty and power shine through, even when I’m met with criticism or resistance. Nothing can really slow me down when I am following myself and my own inner light. I celebrate the light of others shine forth, too, as we are all divine beings with so much creative power that we long to express, share, and enjoy.”
Candace: Well, that couldn’t be any more on point with the topic.
Natalie: I know, I was like, oh of course.
Candace: People are gonna stop believing that you’re actually pulling them.
Natalie: I know. Maybe I should stop, they’re gonna be like “Fraud! Fraud!” I know, it’s crazy, it’s crazy because today we’re talking about being us, or you. So being who you are as individuals, and what stops us, and what holds us back from expressing our true selves. So this week I heard a song, well actually I was gonna say for the first time but it wasn’t for the first time, a few weeks ago a friend sent me a song and I listened to it and it was just beautiful and then I went on with my day and I didn’t think anymore about it, and then three weeks later I heard it again and it literally hit me right in the heart.
So I felt so much transformation just from listening to this one song, that I instantly shared it with the girls and I let them share what came up for them, if anything when they heard this song, but really it was to do with, the main reason why it was so impactful for me was because when we started this, three weeks ago I started a project and then it finished as I heard this song again, and I hadn’t realized it was the same song that I’d heard all this time ago at the beginning of this project. And all of the words in the song really speak to what we dealt with as we worked through this project, which is to do with fear of being seen, not expressing our truth, all of those things, so when I heard this song it was just like the perfect ending to this project where I was like this just … this is healed.
I worked through all this stuff and now this is healed just from the words in this song. So the song if you don’t, hopefully you know it, but if you haven’t I suggest you go and YouTube it right now which is This is Me, we might even be able to get it somehow linked in this video, but I’ll let Candace work that one out.
Candace: We’ll figure it out.
Natalie: The song is called This is Me by Keala Settle and it’s from The Greatest Showman movie, and really it’s all just about her owning her power, her not being willing to be quashed by anybody or anything and really just stepping into her own self and truth and power, so Candace do you want to share what you felt when you first heard this song?
Candace: Yes, so … you shared the link to that video and I sat and listened to it on repeat, watching the same video over and over again for two hours, crying my eyes out. Over and over again, tears streaming down my cheeks, just feeling the words of that song at the deepest levels of my heart. It talks about I won’t accept, I think that the word she uses is like “I’m being shot with bullets.” And it has to do with shame, and she says “I’m not going to accept it anymore.” And that we are taught to … be ashamed of who we are, be ashamed of our scars, and that she’s just not going to do it anymore, and every … so the video that you had sent specifically had an interview with her at the beginning and the song was actually them performing it for the first time in trying to get the movie deal, so it was a very … I think that that was a big part, I mean the song is beautiful and the lyrics are beautiful and they still would’ve had an impact but seeing it in that version was watching her really get … get, integrate, really feel what she was singing for herself in that moment.
So it was like she stepped out and took her power and was like “I am not going to be afraid or ashamed or hide myself anymore.” Was my take on it, and it was so impactful for me because that’s what we do, we grow up in this world that tells us we need to look a certain way, we need to act a certain way, we need to be a certain way, we need to do certain things, and when you don’t fit those perfect ideals … I mean, I’m using general terms, but people turn their nose up at you, people judge you, people don’t accept you for who you are, and in the film she was the bearded lady and she was overweight, and I could just, not that I have a beard, but I could see myself in her feeling like odd-man out.
When I walk into the room, I don’t automatically feel like I have a place there, I don’t automatically feel accepted, I don’t automatically feel love. There might be 99 people in that room that are loving and accepting and with open arms, and I will find the energy of the one person who is saying “Really? You’re wearing that?” You know? And it doesn’t even have to be words out loud, so that’s … what my perspective has been, was to find that one person, and so when she was saying that and she was singing basically I won’t accept that anymore, I will not be ashamed anymore because you tell me to, I was like … mind blown. Mind blown, and it was the power of the live version of that song, and seeing her transformation in that moment.
Natalie: Absolutely, and I think that version actually has the guy called Ben Thompson who sings the line that you’re talking about, which I think, that line hits me so hard every single time that the … “Another round of bullets hits my skin, so fire away ’cause I won’t let that shame sink in.” And it’s so empowering, literally hit me with what you’ve got, ’cause it isn’t gonna touch me, and I just love that mindset where, we’re so sensitive to other people’s opinions and other people’s words, and also to me it kind of was on level not even just other people’s words, also my own words because it’s like, there’s a bit … I’ve wrote it down just ’cause I wanted to say “When the sharpest words wanna cut me down, I’m gonna send the flood, I’m gonna drown them out.” And I’m just like “That’s my fricking head, that’s my head giving me my sharp words, you can’t do this, you aren’t worth that.” And every time you try, ego, brain, whatever, mind, tried to say that to me, I’m just gonna send a flood of love right back at you and it ain’t gonna touch me.
But so it’s like really kind of empowering like that, but yeah, Dani what did you think when you heard it? What came up?
Dani: Well, to hear Candace say that she listened to it and cried for two hours, I’m usually the cry baby of the group, but I did listen to it twice and bawled all the way the through, but it was … it’s very much the same thing that you guys are talking about, and I related to her extra because I am overweight and things like that, and I just have these things, and like you were saying Natalie though it’s all in my own mind, not … living in Kansas where it’s regularly 95 degrees and humid, and I will not wear tank tops because I don’t like the way my arms look, and I will not wear shorts because I don’t like the way my legs look, that song really spoke to me and how she … they said in the, you were saying that video is particularly powerful, and she’s saying when she came out from behind and stood in front was really the first time she did it and I just thought…
I just thought “I wanna own my space, own my body, own that, like coming out from behind … and standing there, regardless.” And it isn’t even the other people ’cause they don’t really give a shit if I have dimples and fat on my arm, or if I have it hanging down, they don’t care! It’s all me telling myself what they think, or what they don’t think, or whatever, it’s all irrelevant, it’s all just me in my own head shaming myself. I don’t even need them to do that, and it was, yeah, very profound song, and I’ve heard it before. You know like we say so often it’s like … these messages can come in a hundred times, but when it hits you, when it’s the right time and it has that particular tone and that particular relatability like with the video and the backstory and everything in that personal side of it, it really really hit home and just made me see myself in her and in everybody in that room who was just like … going for something they believed in, and doing something they believed in, and after that I did watch several other videos that were like of the making of the movie, and interviews with Hugh and … different songs in the movie and they were all like that!
I mean they all just made you want to just stand up and sing and find something you really believe in and follow that dream, I mean it sounds so cliché but that is just how I felt, it just inspired me to a new level of just standing in my physical body and being present, and being proud, and being it is what it is, and letting so much of that go. But I thought if she can do it with a beard, I can do it with just being fat.
Natalie: Absolutely, I think it’s like as well, so one of the things I was asked recently what I wanted most for my kids, like what do you hope for most out of your kids and the number one thing for me is that they stay true to who they are, that they are full of self worth and confidence, that they can just … be them without feeling the need to conform to any other way of being, and the songs all about that and a wonderful friend shared a video by Wayne Dyer with me yesterday and it had in it saying, it was like five tips to live a … best life or something, and it was, like, one of the things was don’t die with your music still in you, and he even said, he quoted this very … important person, and it said, “But we all hear a different drummer, we march to the music we hear.” And that’s exactly what it says in the song as well “Look out cuz here I come, marching on to the beat I drum” and I’m just like … yes!
Because how boring that would be if we all drummed the same fricking beat along the street, like it reminds me of a wonderful book, if you haven’t read it, it’s actually a kids book called Odd Dog Out which I think Candace you’ve got for someone too, but it’s the most beautiful book where it’s about this dog who doesn’t fit in where they are, she’s surrounded by all the same kind of dogs, and then so she goes off to find her place in the world and finds it and realizes how dull it is, and that she wants to stand tall and be true and just be her, and she comes back and they all welcome her because they were all like “Oh, we’ve realized how boring life was because we were all the same.” And then they’re all kind of starting to have their own quirks and things and it’s just the most beautiful book … for everyone, kids or adults.
But I just think it’s so important and I think there’s so much … in your heart I think you know what you want to do or how you want to live, but there’s so much in life that kind of tells you how you should be and what you should be doing, and whether that’s doing the job thing in nine to five and all of that stuff, or starting something that really speaks to your soul you know, so many people just keep trundling along without even an awareness that their kind of diminishing their soul, and so, yeah, I just love that, I think it’s really really an important thing and it’s something I want my kids to do, and I think that if I want my kids to do it, I have to do that myself.
How can I help my kids have that sense of self worth, while I’m keeping myself small and it’s her whole energy’s about not allowing yourself to be defined other people, or even your past, so all of the scars that you hold, you know you’re just like all that people think that they don’t want to see me in my mess but there’s nothing stronger than just speaking your truth, as we saw with her! Literally her just coming out and, I know that it’s a song so like she didn’t get, but I think it really did embody her in the moment where coming out and saying that, that inspired all of us, so if we all did that, what if we all did that? Like how much more inspired and fulfilled would we be?
Candace: I think that it would be so amazing that I couldn’t even imagine it. Can you imagine a world where people were just themselves, there was no pressure, there was no shame, there was no guilt, like you just got to be? That’s like the utopia that I dream about. But the commune that I wanna create where everybody’s just living peacefully together, and there’s nothing but love.
Natalie: I know! But we’ve been getting so many messages ’cause you’ve got those emails Dani, like last week, on the same day everything was telling you just be you, so I feel like there’s definitely something right now that’s trying to tell us all, the sentence from the universe. Own it.
Candace: It’s time, the utopia’s coming.
Dani: Well utopia is wherever we are, right? There’s that old, that was old saying, Rumi or one of the ancient mystics says “When I was a young man I wanted to change the world, and now that I’m older and wiser I want to change myself. I seek to change myself.” And we know that by the transformation that happens within us, that it impacts the entire world and that also we’re all one, we’re all waves on the same ocean, so whenever we are lifted up it automatically raises all the others. And I think that’s … no, nevermind, I was gonna go down a total rabbit trail there, I’m just not myself right now! This is really beautiful.
Natalie: I think the other thing is, so I was trying to think so where am I not doing that? So where am I everyday not being true, where am I shrinking myself? And then I realized in that very moment that it’s been the podcast, and I think I was hiding it! So the next day I just, someone was asking about podcasts and so I went and dropped a link, which was such a big deal because I’ve not wanted, you know we’re doing this, I know it’s felt good, but I haven’t wanted to put myself out there so it kind of inspired me to take some action.
Candace: I’ll add to that also that I think for you and me both Natalie, that the transformation that came from that song, it was like the universe was there to be like “You sure? You sure you got this?” Because fast forward less than a week, and you and I are leading episodes which we have successfully tried to hide in the background and let Dani lead each episode.
Dani: Look at her go! Woot Woot!
Natalie: You’ll have to bear with us, listeners, in this transition. I know we’re not quite as good, but we’ll get there.
Dani: It is all working so perfectly.
Natalie: Thank you.
Is there anything else anyone would like to add about being true, is there anywhere else in your life that you don’t feel that you are the, you know, have felt more inspired or … after this podcast more inspired?
Dani: I think for me I definitely am, I know that I went out and bought a couple of tank tops.
Natalie: What? Woo!
Candace: Good for you!
Dani: Yeah, summer’s coming early to Kansas, it’s really really warm, and they feel so good! They feel so good you guys, I haven’t worn tank tops in so long, and they feel amazing and so free, and so when I start the talk I just … shut it down a lot easier and a lot quicker and just, it’s been a wonderful, wonderful reminder to me, and the fact that it inspired me to want that, and to pay attention to that, and by that I mean … standing in my physical body and being present in my physical body because that is one area where I shrink and I hide and I … stopped going out to meet with friends sometimes, or go to different meet up groups or different things that I would enjoy doing because of just feeling self conscious or whatever.
Certainly any of the singles groups, or anything like that, but because there’s an extra kind of layer of judgment maybe, or whatever from the external but, I know for me so I’ve bought tank tops, I’m being much more aware of standing physically in my body and being present with the energy that I’m bringing with that, and those are pretty huge, I mean those are a big deal.
Candace: Yeah, absolutely.
Natalie: I know, I mean the small things sound so little because it’s just like “Oh I bought some tank tops.” And to some people that’s nothing, but it’s huge and just like me posting the podcast, I mean you’d think you’re spending all your time recording these things, getting them transcribed, you’d think you’d wanna actually do something with it, but you know it’s a big deal just dropping that link, like I actually almost hyperventilated so … you know. Give yourself credit, it’s huge, it’s huge.
Dani: Yeah, it is and I think that that is realistically that’s how transformation happens is you know we get a new understanding and then little things change and then they accumulate and then they keep going and before you know it you look back and you’re like “Wow, that’s pretty cool! Look where I used to be, and I’m not there anymore.”
Candace: Yeah, for sure. I’ve been … playing that song in the car every time I leave the house and replaying the lyrics in my head, whether I’m at home or I’m out … the inner critic in me is very loud and so as soon as that starts or, even if it’s not the inner critic but it’s the fear, you know. If I do this will I fail, will people judge me, will the world come to an end, and just repeating in my head the lyrics so I use … the I’m gonna flood them out lyrics and then I also use the I’m not gonna let the shame sink in lyrics depending on the situation. But I’ve just been repeat, repeat, repeat, in my head and it honestly … helps me to take my power back in that moment, because I’m so wrapped up worrying about… I mean essentially what it boils down to, is that I’m worried about what other people are going to think, that is ultimately what the root of it is, and it really is disempowering when you live your life that way.
And so it’s really helping me to pull my power back and feel strong enough to, not necessarily face that, because it’s not really facing it, it’s just like … I don’t choose that anymore. I don’t accept that anymore. So it’s been huge for me, huge, and I can only see it continuing to help me grow and propel me forward because there’s a lot of things that I wanna do, and playing small won’t get me there.
Natalie: Yes. Well thank you ladies.
Dani: Thank you! That was beautiful!
Candace: Thank you for sharing that song in the first place, and thank you for today’s episode.
Natalie: Alright, see you next week!
Dani: Bye!
Candace: Bye!